Spot the Computer Hidden Computers

Embedded System Design

Prof. Stephen A. Edwards
sedwards@cs.columbia.edu

Casio Nokia 7110 Sony

Spring 2007 Camera Browser Playstation 2
Watch Phone

Philips Philips
DVD Player TiVo Recorder
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Technical Challenges Software complexity growing Digital Camera Block Diagram

Size of Typical Embedded System

1985 13 kLOC
1989 21 kLOC ↓ 44 % per year
1998 1 MLOC
2000 2 MLOC

Real-time Complexity
2008 16 MLOC ≈ Windows NT 4.0
2010 32 MLOC ≈ Windows 2000
Source: “ESP: A 10-Year Retrospective,” Embedded Systems Programming,
November 1998

Concurrency Legacy Languages Embedded System Design – p. 4/26 Embedded System Design – p. 5/26 Embedded System Design – p. 6/26

The Design Challenge The Time-to-Market Challenge Simplified Revenue Model

Sales Loss due to delay
Design optimal device that meets constraints on Market ramp On-time curve
Possible Revenue

Price Functionality Typical Delayed curve

time-to-market
constraint:
8 months Time
Performance Size D W 2W
Assuming a constant market ramp, on-time revenue is 12 bh = 12 · 2W · W = W 2
Market and delayed revenue is 12 (2W − D)(W − D) so fractional revenue loss is

Power Time-to-market Window D(3W − D)

= O(D 2 )
2W 2
Time Example: when W = 26 and D = 10, fraction lost is about 50%.

Maintainability Safety
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 NRE Embedded System Technologies IC Technology

Nonrecurring engineering cost:

The cost of producing the first one. Integrated Circuits 1947: First transistor (Shockley, Bell Labs)

NRE cost dominates

Processing elements 1958: First integrated circuit (Kilby, TI)
Production cost dominates
log Unit Cost

1971: First microprocessor (4004: Intel)

Low NRE, high production costs
Design tools
Today: six wire layers, 45 nm features

High NRE, low production costs

log Volume
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Moore’s Law $1000 buys you this many CPS 1918 Sears Roebuck Catalog
Electromechanical Relay Tube Transistor Integrated Circuit

108

106

104

102

1

10−2

10−4
Gordon Moore, 1965: Exponential growth in the About $100 in today’s dollars.
number of transistors per IC 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 From Donald Norman, The Invisible Computer, 1998.
Source: Intel
Source: Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines
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Spectrum of IC choices Hardware and Software Design Tools

Flexibility
You choose
Full Custom polygons (Intel) Hardware Software
Logic Synthesis Compilers
ASIC circuit (Sony)
Hardware Software Place-and-route Assemblers
Gate Array wires Parallel Sequential
DRC/ERC/LVS Linkers
Synchronous Asynchronous
Logic Gates Stored programs Simulators Debuggers
FPGA logic network
Wire-based Memory-based
PLD logic function communication communication
GP Processor program (e.g., Pentium) Fixed topology Highly programmable
Low power High power
SP Processor program (e.g., DSP) More detailed Less detailed
Multifunction settings (e.g., Ethernet) High NRE No NRE
Fixed-function part number (e.g., 74LS00) Faster Slower
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Cost of Designs is Rising Your Nemesis: The Altera DE2 DE2 Peripherals

1981: 100 designer-months for leading-edge chip

10k transistors, 100 transistors/month
2002: 30 000 designer-months
150M transistors, 5000 transistors/month
Design cost increased from $1M to $300M
10G p
r chi
rs pe
100M sisto
Tran
1M
month
10k rs /designer-
Transisto
100
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
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Class Structure Custom Project Ideas More Ideas

Three Introductory Labs: 1.5 weeks each Broadly: C + VHDL + peripheral(s) Digital tone control
1. Access, modify, and display memory in VHDL Video game (e.g., Pac-Man) Digital sound effects processor
2. An Ethernet chat client (software only) Real-time audio spectrum analyzer
Video effects processor
3. Either Speech synthesizer
Digital picture frame
(a) an FM audio synthesizer; Internet radio
Serial terminal
(b) a video bouncing ball; or
(c) image convolution with a 3 × 3 kernel Serial port monitor
Very fancy digital clock (w/ video)
The project: Design-your-own

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Projects from 2004 Projects from 2005 Projects from 2006

MIDI synthesizer Scrabble Timer Video-guided Lego Robot

Line-following robot with video vision Scorched Earth Video Game 360◦ camera de-warper
SAE student vehicle telemetry system SAE Auto Shifter Videogame with accelerated line-drawing
Stereo video vision system Internet Radio Broadcaster Voice recorder
Pac-man-like video game 3D Maze Game Internet radio
Internet video camera Voice-over-IP Telephone JPEG decoder
JPEG decoder Voice over IP tranceiver
Sokoban video game
Rally-X video game

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