Would you prefer a hypervisor or a multicore framework?

“Hypervisor or multicore framework… or both?” is one of the key architectural questions facing embedded designers today. A recent technical article offers some advice on what should influence the decision.

The choice has been made trickier as designs have evolved from simply suing multiple cores to increase processing power to the segmentation of different functions in asymmetric multi-processing configurations.

At a basic level, hypervisors are generally seen as appropriate almost only when all the cores are identical whereas a multicore framework can run on each core within a heterogeneous system independent.

However, as the article from Siemens Digital Industries Software explains, there is more to it than simply that. There are also such factors as inter-core communications, safety, security, boot order and debug to consider. Figure 1 summarizes some of the pros and cons with the two techniques that are discussed by the article in more depth, considering the context of those and other design challenges.

Figure 1. The pros and cons of hypervisors and multicore frameworks (Siemens – click to enlarge)

“The final decision will depend on the specific application requirements and the use case for the device,” the article notes. “The options should be considered as complementary solutions to unlock the power of a multicore SoC. The availability and understanding of these choices allows the designer to achieve a more optimal multicore design.”

‘Multicore System Management: Hypervisor or Multicore Framework?’ Is available for download here.