A Hypervisor for Embedded Computing

Mobile applications are a nascent market waiting to be tapped. Next generation mobiles offer a promise of specialized hardware such as multi-touch screens (like the Apple iPhone) or motion sensors (as with the Nintendo Wii) which will enable exciting new applications. In order to make optimal use of these hardware devices, applications must directly interact with the hardware. However, the ability to use native applications carries a certain risk for both device security and reliability. For example, a rogue application could compromise your address book or flood a mobile network. We propose to solve this problem by limiting the access of native applications through confinement in virtual machines that allow applications to access fullyfeatured hardware efficiently, while isolating dangerous functionality from other virtual machines. Following a brief discussion of relevant background material, we discuss and explore the use cases and issues that make embedded virtualization challenging. Then, we describe the initial exploration efforts and the goals that were established for the prototype. We then present the resulting architecture in detail. Finally, we conclude with a brief listing of future work planned and a summary of related work.