The document discusses the role of hypervisors in automotive applications, highlighting their ability to support mix-criticality systems by integrating software with varying safety, security, and real-time requirements. It addresses challenges related to virtualization of I/O devices in automotive, particularly the lack of standardized interfaces compared to desktop and cloud applications. The document also mentions the virtio standard for virtual I/O devices and presents a shared display solution, while acknowledging limitations in the current automotive ecosystem.

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“Virtual Display Architecture on Top of
Automotive Grade Hypervisor”
Oleksandr Gabrylchuk
Senior Software Engineer, Engineering

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Agenda
● Hypervisor types
● Role of Hypervisor in automotive
● VirtIO
● Shared display solution

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Hypervisor types

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Role of a hypervisor in automotive
A hypervisor makes it possible to build mix-criticality systems and can integrate safely
and securely:
● Software that is developed according to different quality standards: o Related to safety
(different ASIL levels) o Related to security (different levels of trustworthiness, isolating a
minimal trusted computing base) o Related to reliability
● Software that has different real-time (e.g. RTOS and generic OS) and boot-time
requirements In addition, a hypervisor:
● Enables the use of optimally suited operating systems and frameworks (Linux, Android,
AUTOSAR, RTOS)
● Isolates faults (safety, reliability) and attacks (security) and supports ASIL decomposition
● Enables modular development and modular software updates
● Supports software reuse across platforms and integration of legacy software

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Visualization challenges
Virtualized IO devices are available for desktop and cloud applications because everyone
uses standardized interfaces (virtio, xen, vmware)
● Disk
● Network
Embedded devices lack the ecosystem that cloud providers build upon
Challenges for virtualized IO devices in automotive
● High effort of SoC specific device virtualization
● Multimedia device virtualization
● Low amount of reusable virtual devices

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VirtIO
Virtio “De-Facto Standard For Virtual I/O Devices” (Russel 2008)
Standardized since March 2016 (OASIS VIRTIO-v1.0)
Virtio provides interfaces for many devices
● Block Storage
● Network
● Console
● GPU
● Input (hid)
● Crypto device
● vSock
● File Server (9pfs)
● Many more in development (vIOMMU, etc.)
Still missing pieces
● Audio
● Sensors
● Media Acceleration Offload (VPU)

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OpenSynergy Display Sharing Solution

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Use-case of Shared Display

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Challenges
● VirtIO was not used in automotive before
● Used zero-copy approach
● Weston shell xdg shell limitations
● DRM subsystem complexity
● HW platforms limitations

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Questions?

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Thank you