Lauterbach and Kernkonzept enable virtualised RISC-V systems

To execute mixed-critical workloads with different security levels on a high-performance processor, strong isolation including the respective operating systems is essential. To achieve this, developers can virtualise the underlying hardware with the help of a hypervisor, whereby workloads with different safety levels are executed in isolated Virtual Machines (VMs).

A software architecture for Software Defined Vehicles (SDV) for example combines Cloud technologies with automotive functional safety and real-time requirements for the first time, with the consequence that virtualisation is indispensable. Leading semiconductor suppliers in the automotive value chain have already committed to RISC-V, however, corresponding SoCs, which will enable virtualisation on RISC-V CPUs, are still under development.

To give developers the opportunity to create appropriate software right now, Kernkonzept and Lauterbach enable for the first time to develop, debug, and test RISC-V software for virtualised software architectures on the well-known and widely used emulation platform QEMU.

For this Kernkonzept's L4Re Hypervisor runs on the Generic RISC-V Virtual Platform implemented in QEMU, while Lauterbach's TRACE32 debug and trace tools allow the analysis of the entire software stack including the L4Re Hypervisor itself and all virtual machines (VM) with their heterogeneous OSes and applications.

As a result, developers of virtualised software architectures and applications running on heterogeneous rich and real-time OSes can start their development work immediately even before the corresponding RISC-V chips are delivered in silicon.

Kernkonzept’s L4Re Hypervisor securely separates real-time workloads even on very small chips. The minimal code base in privileged mode and all its possibilities for integrating security and safety functions perfectly into the system make the L4Re Hypervisor family ideal for products that must be certified. By leveraging these features, the risk in the certification process is significantly reduced, while also saving time and resources. This is making it the perfect application for the automotive industry, avionics, or the IoT. By combining the open-source software L4Re with the open architecture RISC-V, Kernkonzept can provide more customers with state-of-the-art security software, enhancing their system integrity.
TRACE32 enables simultaneous debugging and of the CPU and other cores in an emulated or silicon SoC, a capability that covers the entire system. On virtualised systems, TRACE32 Hypervisor-aware debugging allows to perform concurrent OS-aware debugging for each guest OS/virtual machine (VM) and display an overview of the overall system. TRACE32 tools provide access to hypervisor and OS structures and data so developers can better understand how they are behaving and utilising chip resources.

“We are excited to enable the development of virtualised software architectures on RISC-V together with Kernkonzept”, said Norbert Weiss, Managing Director of Lauterbach GmbH. "Virtualisation is the key to Software Defined Vehicles, where multiple safety-critical and non-critical applications are sharing a platform and thanks to our collaboration, developers can start creating world-class software immediately,” said Adam Lackorzynski, Founder and CTO at Kernkonzept.

As technology experts in their respective fields, Lauterbach and Kernkonzept support virtualised software architectures for RISC-V from the very beginning.