VADI: GPU Virtualization for an Automotive Platform

Abstract

Modern vehicles are evolving with more electronic components than ever before (In this paper, "vehicle" means "automotive vehicle." It is also equal to "car.") One notable example is graphical processing unit (GPU), which is a key component to implement a digital cluster. To implement the digital cluster that displays all the meters (such as speed and fuel gauge) together with infotainment services (such as navigator and browser), the GPU needs to be virtualized; however, GPU virtualization for the digital cluster has not been addressed yet. This paper presents a Virtualized Automotive DIsplay (VADI) system to virtualize a GPU and its attached display device. VADI manages two execution domains: one for the automotive control software and the other for the in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) software. Through GPU virtualization, VADI provides GPU rendering to both execution domains, and it simultaneously displays their images on a digital cluster. In addition, VADI isolates GPU from the IVI software in order to protect it from potential failures of the IVI software. We implement VADI with Vivante GC2000 GPU and perform experiments to ensure requirements of International Standard Organization (ISO) safety standards. The results show that VADI guarantees 30 frames per second (fps), which is the minimum frame rate for digital cluster mandated by ISO safety standards even with the failure of the IVI software. It also achieves 60 fps in a synthetic workload.