Virtualizing hardware with system management interrupts
US6799316B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 23, 2000 |
| Grant date | Sep 28, 2004 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Mar 23, 2020 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG06F9/45537
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Initially, a SMI trap detects an application accessing a memory location associated with a physical hardware device. The SMI trap receives the device address for the address bus and compares that address with memory addresses for hardware devices being virtualized by virtual device simulators. If the address matches an available virtual device, the SMI caches the address, hooks and caches the corresponding IO instruction for the memory address and issues a SMI. A SMI handler receives the SMI and determines which virtual device simulator to call. Once activated by the SMI handler, the virtual device simulator interacts with the application and then returns control to the processor.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.