Improving security, reducing cost

ISV is built on Green Hills Software's Integrity rtos, which it says is the first and only operating system technology to be certified by the NSA to EAL6+ High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. According to GHS, ISV reduces costs through processor consolidation, improves system security and reliability and reduces the certification burden in mission critical applications such as banking, industrial control, and medical systems. ISV supports TrustZone technology-enabled ARM cores – including the ARM1176JZ(F)-S, Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 processors – on leading SoC implementations from Texas Instruments, Freescale and other semiconductor partners. ISV consists of the certified Integrity operating system technology coupled with facilities to execute one or more 'guest' operating systems on TrustZone technology-enabled SoCs. It is said to provide a communications interface for the normal zone to request services of the secure zone. This architecture enables security and reliability critical applications to execute with guaranteed memory, cpu time resources and device access control, regardless of what is happening in the normal zone. Gordon Jones, vice president of Green Hills Software's Embedded Virtualisation Business Unit, said: "ARM's TrustZone technology provides a high performance yet power efficient approach to virtualization. ISV enables the deployment of trustworthy applications, such as network authentication and digital rights management, sandboxed from the general purpose operating environment. This architecture enables ARM Powered devices to enjoy the best of both worlds – uncompromising security alongside all the bells and whistles of Linux, Android, Windows Mobile, and other leading multimedia environments."