VARYING FIRMWARE FOR VIRTUALIZED DEVICE

A technique for varying firmware for different virtual functions in a virtualized device is provided. The virtualized device includes a hardware accelerator and a microcontroller that executes firmware. The virtualized device is virtualized in that the virtualized device performs work for different virtual functions (with different virtual functions associated with different virtual machines), each function getting a “time-slice” during which work is performed for that function. To vary the firmware, each time the virtualized device switches from performing work for a current virtual function to work for a subsequent virtual function, one or more microcontrollers of the virtualized device examines memory storing addresses for firmware for the subsequent virtual function and begins executing the firmware for that subsequent virtual function. The addresses for the firmware are provided by a corresponding virtual machine at configuration time.