An Overview of Microkernel, Hypervisor and Microvisor Virtualization Approaches for Embedded Systems

Abstract—This paper addresses an essential application of microkernels; its role in virtualization for embedded systems. Virtualization in embedded systems and microkernel-based virtualization are topics of intensive research today. As embedded systems specifically mobile phones are evolving to do everything that a PC does, employing virtualization in this case is another step to make this vision a reality. Hence, recently, much time and research effort have been employed to validate ways to host virtualization on embedded system processors i.e., the ARM processors. This paper reviews the research work that have had significant impact on the implementation approaches of virtualization in embedded systems and how these approaches additionally provide security features that are beneficial to equipment manufacturers, carrier service providers and end users. Index Terms—microkernel, hypervisor, microvisor, virtual-ization, embedded system