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Green Hills Software Announces World's First Mobile Multivisor™

Multicore Hypervisor for ARM Cortex-A9 Processor Enables a New Generation of Mobile Device Usage Models


Mobile World Congress 2010, Barcelona, Spain —15 February 2010—Green Hills Software, Inc., the largest independent supplier of embedded software solutions, today announced the INTEGRITY® Multivisor™, a multicore hypervisor for ARM® Cortex-A9 MPCore™ processors. The INTEGRITY Multivisor is built on INTEGRITY, the world’s market-leading, high-reliability RTOS and the only technology certified by USA’s National Security Agency to EAL6+ High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product.

The INTEGRITY Multivisor unlocks the performance potential of multicore designs, reduces OEM costs through processor consolidation, increases battery life by facilitating intelligent multicore power management, enables new usage models such as dual operating system personalities on a single device, and reduces cost and time-to-market for platform suppliers and OEMs by reusing proven versions of multimedia operating systems, such as Android and Linux.

"The Cortex-A9 processor delivers unprecedented performance-efficiency for an upcoming generation of connected mobile devices," said Gordon Jones, vice president of Green Hills Software’s Embedded Virtualization Business Unit. "However, taking maximum advantage of a multicore platform requires a systems software solution that can securely consolidate disparate workloads: controlling peripheral access, minimizing power consumption across cores, and providing flexible APIs for sophisticated new usage models."

"We welcome the development of the INTEGRITY Multivisor which delivers a powerful systems software foundation optimized for the Cortex-A9 MPCore processor" commented Eric Schorn, vice president of marketing, Processors Division, ARM. "The Green Hills Multivisor is a valuable addition to the range of optimized solutions available to Cortex-A9 licensees through the ARM Connected Community™ ecosystem."

About INTEGRITY Multivisor

INTEGRITY Multivisor for the ARM Cortex-A9 processor is a member of the family of INTEGRITY Secure Virtualization (ISV) solutions. ISV consists of the certified INTEGRITY real-time microkernel technology coupled with facilities to execute one or more "guest" operating systems. INTEGRITY Secure Virtualization also provides a native environment for specialized applications, such as security functionality, fast-boot web browsers, and platform/OEM multimedia and communications codecs. The INTEGRITY RTOS advanced architecture enables virtual machines and applications to safely co-exist with guaranteed memory, CPU time resources, and strictly enforced device access control.

INTEGRITY Secure Virtualization offers several approaches to virtualization in ARM-powered devices. ISV can use paravirtualization to host Android and other guest operating systems. Alternatively, ISV can host unmodified guest operating systems ("full" virtualization) by using advanced software virtualization techniques as well as hardware acceleration when available.

In addition to virtualization, ISV can optionally be used as a Secure Execution Mode for ARM TrustZone® technology-enabled processors. Security-critical applications such as cryptographic algorithms and protocols used for DRM, critical financial transactions, and firmware authentication are isolated from the primary user environment by a combination of TrustZone hardware and INTEGRITY software partitioning. ISV provides an efficient API for strictly controlled access to TrustZone security services.

For platform suppliers and OEMs who must support multiple multimedia operating systems, ISV can provide significant cost and time-to-market savings by enabling all of these operating systems to run on the latest hardware without porting.

In addition to its security and reliability features, ISV comes with more than a decade of tools and a middleware ecosystem to help platform suppliers and OEMs develop and deploy products faster. The INTEGRITY RTOS is supported by thousands of device drivers, network stacks, file systems, JVMs, and many other components – pre-integrated and ready to deploy.

About Green Hills Software

Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software, Inc. is the largest independent vendor of embedded development solutions. In 2008, the Green Hills INTEGRITY-178B RTOS was the first and only operating system to be certified by the NSA to EAL6+ High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. Our open architecture integrated development solutions address deeply embedded, absolute security and high-reliability applications for the military/avionics, medical, industrial, automotive, networking, consumer and other markets that demand industry-certified solutions. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the United Kingdom. Visit Green Hills Software at www.ghs.com.

ARM and TrustZone are registered trademarks of ARM Limited. Cortex and MPCore are trademarks of ARM Limited. All other brands or product names are the property of their respective holders. "ARM" is used to represent ARM Holdings plc; its operating company ARM Limited; and the regional subsidiaries ARM Inc.; ARM KK; ARM Korea Limited.; ARM Taiwan Limited; ARM France SAS; ARM Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd.; ARM Belgium N.V.; ARM Germany GmbH; ARM Embedded Technologies Pvt. Ltd.; ARM Norway, AS and ARM Sweden AB.

Green Hills, the Green Hills logo, and INTEGRITY are trademarks or registered trademarks of Green Hills Software, Inc. in the U.S. and/or internationally. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Green Hills Software, Inc.
30 West Sola Street,
Santa Barbara, CA 93101,
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Fax: 805-965-6343
Website: www.ghs.com
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Media Contacts:
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Barbel French
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Email: bfrench@ghs.com

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Eastleigh
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UNITED KINGDOM
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