Temporal Separation for Hardware-Based I/O Virtualization for Mixed-Criticality Embedded Real-Time Systems Using PCIe SR-IOV

Virtualized or partitioned real-time embedded systems consolidate mixed-criticality applications on a common (multi-core) platform. Such embedded systems need spatial separation and temporal separation for secure and safe sharing of Input/Output (I/O) subsystems. This paper suggests a Run-Time Fixed-Size Weighted DMA Transaction Based Temporal Separation Concept to provide temporal separation for hardware-based I/O virtualization using PCI Express (PCIe) Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV). The present practical evaluation of this temporal separation concept demonstrate the applicability to share I/O devices on commercially available computing platforms safely and securly. This temporal separation concept achieves up to 40% lower transfer time than best-effort arbitration. Since the standard PCIe protocol is not touched and the temporal separation mechanisms are concentrated in the I/O device, this is a platform independent, reusable and maintenance-friendly solution to connect I/O devices with temporal separation to a host platform.