hardware monitor

Abstract

The present invention relates to hardware monitors. Wherein, a monitor includes: a register configured to store at least two contexts and a context change value; and a context selector configured to select At least one of the two contexts for context monitoring.

Description

technical field [0001] The present application relates to a hardware monitor, and in particular, but not exclusively, to a hardware monitor for monitoring the data flow of multiple contexts within a processor. Background technique [0002] Hardware monitors attached to a central processing unit (CPU) for checking software are known. A hardware monitor typically examines software executing on the CPU to determine that the software is executing and accessing data between permitted regions. For example, a hardware monitor may be configured to detect when an instruction falls outside a permissive area and may be maliciously inserted, or where in memory space is read from or written outside of a permissive area with similar associated security concerns memory space. [0003] These hardware monitors, also sometimes referred to as fetch monitors, can be implemented on an integrated circuit next to the CPU to monitor memory accesses and check that processes (both supervisor and us...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

A flaw in the current CPU and hardware monitor design is that every time the user process changes, the CPU must perform a hardware register access on the system bus from the CPU to the hardware monitor, which is done after the hardware monitor is set up as the new user Process monitors used to take thousands of clock cycles

Images