Glossary of Terms

ACPI
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
ACRN
ACRN is a flexible, lightweight reference hypervisor, built with real-time and safety-criticality in mind, optimized to streamline embedded development through an open source platform.
ACRN-DM
A user mode device model application running in Service OS to provide device emulations in ACRN hypervisor.
AcrnGT
Intel GVT-g technology for ACRN.
aperture
CPU-visible graphics memory
API
Application Program Interface: A defined set of routines and protocols for building application software.
APL
Apollo Lake platform
BDW
Broadwell, Intel 5th-generation CPU platform
BIOS
Basic Input/Output System.
Dom0 i915
The Intel Graphics driver running in Domain 0
ELSP
GPU’s ExecList submission port
GGTT
Global Graphic Translation Table. The virtual address page table used by a GPU to reference system memory.
GMA
Graphics Memory Address
GPU
Graphics Processing Unit
GTT
Graphic Translation Table
GTTMMADR
Graphic Translation Table Memory Map Address
GuC
Graphic Micro-controller
GVT
Graphics Virtual Technology. GVT-g core device model module up-streamed to the Linux kernel.
GVT-d
Virtual dedicated graphics acceleration (one VM to one physical GPU)
GVT-g
Virtual graphics processing unit (multiple VMs to one physical GPU)
GVT-s
Virtual shared graphics acceleration (multiple VMs to one physical GPU)
Hidden GM
Hidden or High graphics memory, not visible to the CPU.
High GM
See Hidden GM
Hybrid Mode
One of three operation modes (hybrid, partition, sharing) that ACRN supports. In this mixed mode, physical hardware resources can be both partitioned to individual user VMs and shared across user VMs.
I2C
Inter-Integrated Circuit
i915
The Intel Graphics driver
IC
Instrument Cluster
IDT
Interrupt Descriptor Table: a data structure used by the x86 architecture to implement an interrupt vector table. The IDT is used to determine the correct response to interrupts and exceptions.
ISR
Interrupt Service Routine: Also known as an interrupt handler, an ISR is a callback function whose execution is triggered by a hardware interrupt (or software interrupt instructions) and is used to handle high-priority conditions that require interrupting the current code executing on the processor.
IVE
In-Vehicle Experience
IVI
In-vehicle Infotainment
low GM
see aperture
OS
Operating System
OSPM
Operating System Power Management
Partition Mode
One of three operation modes (partition, sharing, hybrid) that ACRN supports. Physical hardware resources are partitioned to individual user VMs.
Pass-Through Device
Physical devices (typically PCI) exclusively assigned to a guest. In the Project ACRN architecture, pass-through devices are owned by the foreground OS.
PCI
Peripheral Component Interface.
PDE
Page Directory Entry
PM
Power Management
Post-Launched VM
Post-Launched VMs are launched and configured by the Service VM. (See Pre-launched VM)
Pre-launched VM
Pre-launched VMs are started by the ACRN hypervisor before the Service VM is launched. (See Post-launched VM)
PTE
Page Table Entry
PV
Para-virtualization (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paravirtualization)
PVINFO
Para-Virtualization Information Page, a MMIO range used to implement para-virtualization
QEMU
Quick EMUlator. Machine emulator running in user space.
RDT
Intel Resource Director Technology (Intel RDT) provides a set of monitoring and allocation capabilities to control resources such as Cache and Memory. ACRN supports Cache Allocation Technology (CAT) and Memory Bandwidth Allocation (MBA).
RSE
Rear Seat Entertainment
RTVM
Real-time VM. A specially-designed VM that can run hard real-time or soft real-time workloads (or applications) much more efficiently than the typical User VM through the use of a passthrough interrupt controller, polling-mode Virtio, Intel RDT allocation features (CAT, MBA), and I/O prioritization. RTVMs are typically a pre-launched VM. A non-safety VM with real-time requirements is a post-launched VM.
Safety VM
A special VM with dedicated hardware resources, running in partition mode, and providing overall system health-monitoring functionality. Currently, a Safety VM is always a pre-launched User VM.
SDC
Software Defined Cockpit
Service OS
Obsolete, see Service VM
Service VM
The Service VM is generally the first VM launched by ACRN and can access hardware resources directly by running native drivers and provides device sharing services to User VMs via the Device Model.
Sharing Mode
One of three operation modes (sharing, hybrid, partition) that ACRN supports. Most of the physical hardware resources are shared across user VMs.
SOS
Obsolete, see Service VM
UEFI
Unified Extensible Firmare Interface. UEFI replaces the traditional BIOS on PCs, while also providing BIOS emulation for backward compatibility. UEFI can run in 32-bit or 64-bit mode and, more important, support Secure Boot, checking the OS validity to ensure no malware has tampered with the boot process.
UOS
Obsolete, see User VM
User OS
Obsolete, see User VM
User VM
User Virtual Machine.
vGPU
Virtual GPU Instance, created by GVT-g and used by a VM
VHM
Virtio and Hypervisor Service Module
Virtio-BE
Back-End, VirtIO framework provides front-end driver and back-end driver for IO mediators, developer has habit of using Shorthand. So they say Virtio-BE and Virtio-FE
Virtio-FE
Front-End, VirtIO framework provides front-end driver and back-end driver for IO mediators, developer has habit of using Shorthand. So they say Virtio-BE and Virtio-FE
VM
Virtual Machine, a guest OS running environment
VMM
Virtual Machine Monitor
VMX
Virtual Machine Extension
VT
Intel Virtualization Technology
VT-d
Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O