Configurable fine-grain protection for multicore processor virtualization

David Wentzlaff, Christopher J. Jackson, Patrick Griffin, Anant Agarwal

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

8 Scopus citations

Abstract

Multicore architectures, with their abundant on-chip resources, are effectively collections of systems-on-a-chip. The protection system for these architectures must support multiple concurrently executing operating systems (OSes) with different needs, and manage and protect the hardware's novel communication mechanisms and hardware features. Traditional protection systems are insufficient; they protect supervisor from user code, but typically do not protect one system from another, and only support fixed assignment of resources to protection levels. In this paper, we propose an alternative to traditional protection systems which we call configurable fine-grain protection (CFP). CFP enables the dynamic assignment of in-core resources to protection levels. We investigate how CFP enables different system software stacks to utilize the same configurable protection hardware, and how differing OSes can execute at the same time on a multicore processor with CFP. As illustration, we describe an implementation of CFP in a commercial multicore, the TILE64 processor.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2012 39th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture, ISCA 2012
Pages464-475
Number of pages12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Event2012 39th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture, ISCA 2012 - Portland, OR, United States
Duration: Jun 9 2012Jun 13 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings - International Symposium on Computer Architecture
ISSN (Print)1063-6897

Other

Other2012 39th Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture, ISCA 2012
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPortland, OR
Period6/9/126/13/12

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Hardware and Architecture

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