My tab is to offer one look at: http://www.ajile.com
They seem to deliver "java on a chip"; I am software, so I have no idea if it works. I can say that 10 years of working with applications, mid-level products and operating systems, where, fortunately, we once had ways to access people in the chip development team. (Imho) most of the time there was a Chinese wall between the “hard dishes” and the “soft” clicks. I intentionally include people of the "virtual machine" in the "hardware" group.
I did not work on aJile . I’m just promoting a seemingly more natural version that can turn into a Java machine that works - somewhat similar to the BBC (and now silicon ARM), Forth, Smalltalk or M2, which started life on "ideal machines."
If I can; I have one significant caveat based on my difficult lessons. Nothing "virtual" makes sense. There will always be a conflict between a “virtual folk” and any “mob programmer”. Howbeit. He will not often help Ms. / Mr. End User XYZ, Vermont, USA ... (or, right?)
My most satisfactory tasks / projects were when we interacted with any available (or available) equipment (or an ideal-machine / virtual machine) in a peer-to-peer dialogue. It does not seem to be so much these days; maybe we just need DSL files instead of hardware or virtual machines ??? (irony: flag).
~ aloha