NEC Corporation has announced that it has succeeded in
the development of multiprocessor virtualisation
technology.
The company says that the new technology enables the flexible
and secure installation of a wide variety of application software
on electronic devices in accordance with user needs, without
causing any harm to the operation of the pre-installed application
software for basic functions. This technology is aimed at making a
variety of devices such as information systems more
multi-functional.
The new multiprocessor virtualisation technology is based on
NEC's proprietary multiprocessor technology for embedded systems.
It separates the application software for basic functions, which
was initially installed on the intended device, and groups of
application software that have been added at a later date by the
user through the allocation of both to different processors.
These processors are then further separated into virtual
processors according to the characteristics of the application
software. Virtual separation succeeds in avoiding interference
among the groups of application software, thereby allowing a
greater number of diverse groups of application software to be
flexibly and securely installed on embedded devices.
Such an approach is also designed to enable a high level of
security as the hardware monitors the access to the memory or
inter-processor communication among the virtual processors. This,
says NEC, results in significantly enhanced system performance as
compared with conventional methods, which only realise virtual
processors with software. Furthermore, switching time between
application software has been cut by 50%.
NEC says that its multiprocessor virtualisation technology
allows multiple independent processors to be virtually built on top
of actual processors, allowing an increase in groups of application
software for installation, while eliminating interference among the
added groups of software.