Patent · US Active

Centralized device virtualization layer for heterogeneous processing units

US8239938B2 · kind B2 · utility

71Cited by
1References
20Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 8, 2008
Grant dateAug 7, 2012
Priority date
Expiry dateJun 7, 2031

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/45537
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method for providing an operating system access to devices, including enumerating hardware devices and virtualized devices, where resources associated with a first hardware device are divided into guest physical resources creating a software virtualized device, and multiple instances of resources associated with a second hardware device are advertised thereby creating a hardware virtualized device. First and second permission lists are generated that specify which operating systems are permitted to access the software virtualized device and the hardware virtualized device, respectively. First and second sets of virtual address maps are generated, where each set maps an address space associated with either the software virtualized device or the hardware virtualized device into an address space associated with each operating system included in the corresponding permission list. The method further includes arbitrating access requests from each of the plurality of operating systems based on the permission lists and the virtual address maps.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.