A method and apparatus for controlling state information retention determines at least a state information save or restore condition for at least one processing circuit such as one or more CPU or GPU cores or pipelines, in an integrated circuit. In response to determining the state information save or restore condition, the method and apparatus controls either or both of saving or restoring of state information for different virtual machines operating on the processing circuit, into corresponding on-die persistent passive variable resistance memory. The state information save or restore condition is a virtual machine level state information save or restore condition. State information for each of differing virtual machines is saved or restored from differing on-die passive variable resistance memory cells that are assigned on a per-virtual machine basis.