OpenSynergy Develops Automotive Safety Hypervisor for ARM Cortex-R52

OpenSynergy, a developer of automotive software based in Berlin, is working on a software hypervisor for the ARM Cortex-R52 processor. The hypervisor turns any chip based on the Cortex-R52 into several virtual machines capable of simultaneously executing separate software tasks.

ARM said this allows for the isolation of safety-critical functions from those that require less stringent control. In addition, it enables the consolidation of applications onto fewer electronic control units (ECUs) to both manage complexity and reduce cost.  Target applications include autonomous vehicles and industrial control systems.

“Mass-market autonomous vehicles will be engineered with greatly enhanced ECU compute capabilities and the ability to safely manage far more complex software stacks,” said Richard York, vice president of embedded marketing, ARM. “The Cortex-R52 was purpose-built for this task, with hypervisor-enabled software separation protecting critical safety features while ensuring fast task execution. This will enable highly performant vehicles that can be fully trusted to take over from the driver.”

“The ARM Cortex-R52 processor will bring virtualization technology to a much wider set of devices in the automotive market,” said Stefaan Sonck Thiebaut, CEO, OpenSynergy. “In doing so, we look forward to enabling the next generation of vehicle architecture.”

https://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/automotive-safety-hypervisor-announced-for-arm-cortex-r52.php