Specifications

Table Of Contents
ARM Debugger 3 9 A R M S p e c i f i c I m p l e m e n t a t i o n s
©1989-2014 Lauterbach GmbH
Virtualization Extension, Hypervisor
The ‘Virtualization Extension’ is an optional extension in ARMv7-A. It can for example be found on Cortex-A7
and Cortex-A15. It adds a ‘Hypervisor’ processor mode used to switch between different guest operating
systems. The extension assumes LPAE and TrustZone. It adds a second stage address translation.
virtual addr. (32-bit) --> MMU --> intermediate physical addr. (40-bit) --> MMU_2nd --> physical addr. (40-bit)
Consequence for Debugging
The debugger shows you the memory view of the mode the core is currently in. The address translation and
therefore the view can/will be different for secure mode, non-secure mode, and hypervisor mode.
You can force a certain view/translation by switching to another mode or by using the access classes “Z:”
(secure), “N:” (non-secure) or “H:” (hypervisor).
If you want to perform an access addressed by an intermediate physical address, you can use the ‘I:’ access
class.
OS awareness for multiple operating systems is under development. At the moment you can have only one
OS awareness at a time.