Abstract: A computer system has a plurality of operating systems, each operating system including a GPU driver; a graphics processing unit (GPU) including GPU firmware for controlling the execution of tasks at the graphics processing unit and, for each operating system: a firmware state register modifiable by the GPU firmware and indicating whether the GPU firmware is online; and an OS state register modifiable by the GPU driver of the respective operating system and indicating whether the GPU driver is online; and a memory management unit configured to mediate access to the registers of the GPU such that each operating system can access its respective registers but not those of other operating systems; wherein: one of the GPU drivers at the plurality of operating systems is a host GPU driver configured to initialise the GPU and bring the GPU firmware online; each GPU driver is configured to submit tasks for processing at the GPU only if its respective firmware state register indicates that the GPU firmware is online;

Abstract: A vehicle safety electronic control system (8) including a first microcontroller (11), a second microcontroller (12), and an inter-processor communication path (13) for bi-directional transfer of data between the microcontrollers (11,12). The system has a first mode of inter-processor communication in which the first microcontroller (11) acts as a master and the second microcontroller (12) acts as a slave, and a second mode of inter-processor communication in which the second microcontroller (12) acts as a master and the first microcontroller (11) acts as a slave. A mode selector (18-20) is provided to select and switch between the first and second modes.

Abstract: A vehicle safety electronic control system (8) including a first microcontroller (11), a second microcontroller (12), and an inter-processor communication path (13) for bi-directional transfer of data between the microcontrollers (11,12). The system has a first mode of inter-processor communication in which the first microcontroller (11) acts as a master and the second microcontroller (12) acts as a slave, and a second mode of inter-processor communication in which the second microcontroller (12) acts as a master and the first microcontroller (11) acts as a slave. A mode selector (18-20) is provided to select and switch between the first and second modes.