The DVM

"When you launch an Android application, it creates a process that allocates memory and CPU processing resources (processor time slices) to the application, so that it has the resources needed to function. Each time an application is launched and a process is spawned, an instance or copy of the DVM is launched into your Android smartphone, iTV, or tablet’s memory. The DVM actually takes the Java language instructions along with the application’s design guidelines (in an XML format), and combines them with any external resources (images, audio or video files, 3D, and so on), and translates them all into optimized low-level binary code that goes into the Android device’s memory and eventually into the processor for processing."