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Introducing Embedded Systems

It gives an overview of what an embedded system is

and how such things are structured.

It concludes with high-level view of the development

process for an embedded systems.

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 Philosophy
It starts with an ancient age 10,000 years ago where people
walking along, picking up stones or rocks or perhaps some sticks.
First drew their interest on outside size, shape, color and
possible uses.
Later it was a curiosity that drove them to learn more, to
understood, to find out what was inside of something or what
made it to work.
Perhaps during the early years, our ancestors used sharpened
sticks to dig the land, thought that it is hardwork and started
thinking to invent the shovels, plow and finally the tractors.

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Continued
We focus on two themes (i) Outside design and
(ii) Inside design.
With each new design, our first look should be from
outside. i.e.
#What are we designing?
# How will people use it- what is its behavior?
# What effect will it have on its operating environment- what
are the outputs?
# What will be the effect of its operating environment- what
are its inputs?

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Continue
As technology advances, we are able to solve the
complexity of the design, by using very powerful
computers.

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 Embedded Systems
An Embedded system is a system that has embedded
software and computer-hardware, which makes it a system
dedicated for an specific application.

Embedded systems has 3 main components

(1) It embeds hardware similar to computer.
(2) It embeds main application software.
(3) It embeds a RTOS that supervises the application software
running hardware and organizes access to resource.

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A short list of embedded systems
Anti-lock brakes Modems
Auto-focus cameras MPEG decoders
Automatic teller machines Network cards
Automatic toll systems Network switches/routers
Automatic transmission On-board navigation
Avionic systems Pagers
Battery chargers Photocopiers
Camcorders Point-of-sale systems
Cell phones Portable video games
Cell-phone base stations Printers
Cordless phones Satellite phones
Cruise control Scanners
Curbside check-in systems Smart ovens/dishwashers
Digital cameras Speech recognizers
Disk drives Stereo systems
Electronic card readers Teleconferencing systems
Electronic instruments Televisions
Electronic toys/games Temperature controllers
Factory control Theft tracking systems
Fax machines TV set-top boxes
Fingerprint identifiers VCRs, DVD players
Home security systems Video game consoles
Life-support systems Video phones
Medical testing systems Washers and dryers

And the list goes on and on

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Some common characteristics of
embedded systems
Single-functioned
Executes a single program, repeatedly.
Ex: DMA,JPEG codec etc.
Tightly-constrained
Low cost, low power, small, fast, etc. Ex: camera.
Reactive and real-time
Continually reacts to changes in the systems environment
Must compute certain results in real-time without delay
Ex: a cars cruise controller continually monitors and
reacts to speed and brake sensors

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 An embedded system example
A digital camera
Digital camera chip
CCD

CCD preprocessor Pixel coprocessor D2A

A2D

lens

JPEG codec Microcontroller Multiplier/Accum

DMA controller Display ctrl

Memory controller ISA bus interface UART LCD ctrl

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Building an Embedded System
An Embedded systems has wide variety of hardware components,
which are interconnected with three basic kinds of computing
engines: microprocessor, microcomputers and
microcontrollers.
The microcomputers and other hardware elements are
connected via the System bus.
System bus: set of wires provides an interconnecting path for
electrical signals to flow. The System bus is actively subdivided
into 3 buses: Address, Data and control.
Firmware: The microprocessor controls the whole system, and
ultimately the application, by executing a set of instructions in
ROM called firmware.

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A Microprocessor Based Embedded System

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 FDE(Instruction cycle): Each instruction has minimum 3 steps
for execution Fetch, decode and Execution. An instruction cycle
is the time taken to execute an instruction.
Instruction set: pseudo code which bring data from outside
world, outputs signals to the external world.
Watchdog timer(WDT): WDT is a timing device that reset the
system after a predefined timeout. It helps in rescuing the
system if a fault develops and program gets stuck.
Real time: System must respond to designated external and
internal events within a specified time interval.

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 Types of Real-Time Systems

Hard real-time system

A system where something very bad happens if
the deadline is not met
Examples: control systems for aircraft, nucluear reactors, chemical
power plants, jet engines, etc.
Soft real-time system
A system where the performance is degraded
below what is generally considered acceptable if
the deadline is missed
Example: multimedia system

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The Embedded Design
Design is the process of translating a customers requirements
into working system.
We began the design of a new embedded application with
some thought about the problem
wrapped some registers, logic and busses
Lines of codes assembly language(p) code,
Download the code object file to development environment,
debugged it, and shipped it.

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Challenges in Embedded System Design
Amount and type of hardware needed: microprocessors,
ASIPs and SPP in the system on the basis of performance, power
dissipation, cost are the challenges in a system design.
And also memory, peripherals and devices internal and external.
Voltage Reduction: In portable or hand-held devices such as
cellular phone, compared to 5V, a CMOS circuit operates at 2V.
Process Deadline: Meeting the deadline of all processes in the
system while keeping the memory, power dissipation, processor
clock rate and cost at minimum is a challenge.
Reliability: Designing a reliable product by appropriate design,
testing and Verification, is a challenge.

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 Classification of Embedded Systems
Based on the application embedded systems are classified into 2
groups,

Simple embedded systems: simple circuits, little hardware and

software complexities and involve board-level design. They may
be even battery operated.
ex: toaster, microwave, video games , toy games etc.
Sophisticated embedded systems: have enormous hardware
and software complexities and may need several IPs, ASIPs,
configurable processors and PLAs .
Ex: control jet aircraft, manage an entertainment system, control
nuclear reactor, etc.

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 Development Process
The Embedded System Life cycle

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The Embedded System Life Cycle
Based on the user inputs the requirement analysis is
performed and Specification is decided which is converted
into Functional specification where System Architecture is
planned.
Now Hardware and Software Specification is carried out,
The Hardware portion involves the design, development,
and test of the physical system architecture, packing,
printed circuit boards, and ultimately the individual
components.
The software portion entails the tasks or algorithmic
portion of the application and is written in high level
language, assembler, or mixture of the two.

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Traditional design approach

Design the hardware components

Design the software components

Bring the two together

Spend time testing and debugging the system.

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Contemporary methodologies
Ensuring a sound hardware and software specification
and input to the process.
Formulating the architecture for the system to be
designed.
Partitioning the hardware and software.
Providing an alternative approach to the design of
hardware and software.

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Major aspects in development of Embedded
Applications
Digital hardware and software architecture.
Formal design, development, and optimization
process.
Safety and reliability.
Digital hardware and software/firmware design.
The interface to physical world analog and digital
signals.
Debug, troubleshooting, and test of our design.

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