Semiconductor device improving performance of virtual machines

A semiconductor device that performs processing while switching an operating mode between a virtual machine mode in which a program is performed in parallel by a plurality of virtual machines and a native mode in which a program is performed by exclusively using an execution time of an execution unit,

• wherein the semiconductor device executes in the virtual machine mode:
• a user program including a user privilege level for which access to a specific hardware resource is limited among hardware resources within the semiconductor device;
• a supervisor program that manages the user program;
• a hypervisor program which includes a hypervisor privilege level and is configured to access to all hardware resources;
• and
• a hypervisor stub program including the hypervisor privilege level which runs in response to a call from the supervisor program and for which access to the hardware resources including the specific hardware resource is permitted,
• wherein presence/absence of an authority to execute a first instruction code for calling the hypervisor stub program is defined for the supervisor program,
• wherein the hypervisor stub program starts in response to a call from the supervisor program for which execution of the first instruction code is permitted, determines whether or not the first instruction code can be processed without stopping other virtual machines, calls the hypervisor program by executing a second instruction code when the first instruction code can be processed without stopping the other virtual machines, and changes the operating mode to the native-mode, and
• wherein the hypervisor program writes information about the presence/absence of an authority to execute a first instruction code in a register.