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.

Passthrough Device

Physical devices (typically PCI) exclusively assigned to a guest. In the Project ACRN architecture, passthrough 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