Unit 1

Introduction to Embedded
System
 Introduction to Embedded System
Embedded
A system that has embedded Software and
Computer Hardware for a specific application.
System is way of doing one or more tasks
according to
Fixed Plan
Program
Set of Rules
 Introduction to Embedded System
Three main component of Embedded system
Hardware similar to computers
Software embeds in ROM so do not required any secondary
memory.
Application Software
Required to perform series of task or process or threads
Real Time Operating system
Used to supervise application software running on hardware
Organizes access of resource according to priority of task
Architecture of Embedded System
Classification of Embedded System
Small Scale Embedded System
Design with single 8 or 16 bit controller
Little hardware and software complexity
System may battery operated
Editor, Compiler, or Assembler can use to compile
the program and to make executable file
The operating software stored within memory
Classification of Embedded System
Medium Scale Embedded System
Design with few 16 or 32 bit controllers, DSP, or
RISC
More hardware and software complexity
C, C++, Visual C++, Java, RTOS, Simulator and
debugger tools are used to design the program.
Classification of Embedded System
Sophisticated Embedded System
Design with configurable or programmable logic
arrays.
Some of the hardware functions can implement
using software.
Huge hardware and software complexity.
The cost of development tools are not reasonable
or not available at all.
In such cases compiler might have to be developed
for the system.
 Characteristics of Embedded System
Real time System
React to events
Interrupts and scheduled the system
functioning in real time.
Complex algorithms
Complex graphics user interface.
 Design Process in Embedded System
Abstraction
Top to bottom
Starts with abstraction of process and then after the
abstraction the details are created.
Bottom to top
Starts from components.
Hardware and Software architecture
Before start of design the architecture of hardware and
software should well understood
Extra functional properties
Extra functionalities required in the system being
developed should be well understood.
 Design Process in Embedded System
System related family of designs
Families of related systems developed earlier should
taken into consideration during design
Modular design
For fast design modular design concept should be
used.
All designed modules should be such that they
integrate.
Appropriate protection strategies are necessary for
each module.
A module is not permitted to change or modify another
module functionality.
 Design Process in Embedded System
Mapping
Mapping into various representations is done from
software requirement.
Data flow and Program flow in the same path should
mapped together in the single entity.
Transform and transaction mapping design
processes are used in designing.
User interface design
User interfaces are design as per user
requirements, analysis of environments and system
function.
 Design Process in Embedded System
Refinements
Each component and module design needs to be
refined iteratively till it becomes the most
appropriate for implementation by the software
team
 Design metrics
Power dissipation
In battery operated system battery need to be charge less
frequently if power dissipation is less.
Performance
Instruction execution time shows the performance of the
system.
Process deadlines
Each process may required to finish their computations
and produce the results within time.
Processes like keypad input processing, graphics display
refresh, audio signal processing etc.
 Design metrics
User interface
These includes keypad and graphics user interface.
Size
Measures in terms of
Physical space required
RAM and flash RAM requirement for running software and
for data storage.
Number of million logic gates in hardware.
Engineering cost
Cos of developing, debugging, and testing the
hardware and software
This is a non-recurring cost.
 Design metrics
Manufacturing cost
Cost of manufacturing each unit.
Flexibility in design
Enables without any significant of engineering cost,
different version of a product and advanced version
later on.
Prototype Development time
Time taken in days or months for developing prototype
and in house testing for system functionality.
It includes engineering time and making the prototype
time.
 Design metrics
Time to market
Time taken in days or months after prototype
development to put a product for users and consumers
System and user safety
System safety in terms of accidental fall from hand or
table
User safety in terms of when using product.
Optimization of various parameters of
Embedded System
Clock rate reduction
Minimizes power loss.
Minimizes Radio Frequency interference.
Voltage reduction
Reduces power requirement by one sixth
Optimization of various parameters of
Embedded System
Wait, Stop and Cache disable instruction
In ideal state of the system, the need to limit power
dissipation.
Software designer must cleverly use wait and stop
instructions.
Operate the system at the lowest voltage levels in
the ideal state.
Disable the several structural units of processor
like Cache memory.
Optimization of various parameters of
Embedded System
Process Deadline
Meeting the deadline of all processes in the system by
keeping the less need of
Memory
Power dissipation
Processor clock rate
Cost
Flexibility and upgrade ability
By keeping product and engineering cost less the later
requirement of market should fulfill the model.
Reliability
Optimization of various parameters of
Embedded System
Reliability
For reliable product :- Appropriate design, testing and
thorough verification is necessary.
The goal of testing is to find the errors in the system.
Verification is used to ensure that specific functions
are correctly implemented.
Validation is used to ensure that the system that has
been created is as per the requirements agreed upon at
the analysis phase, and to ensure its quality.
 Embedded Processor Technology
Processor Technology relates to the
architecture of the computation engine.
General purpose processor
A programmable device that is suitable for variety
of application.
Program Memory
General datapath
Large register file
One or more ALUs
 Embedded Processor Technology
Single Purpose Processor
Designed to execute exactly one program.
Fast performance
Size and power dissipation small
Less unit cost
More design time
Less flexibility
Unit cost high for small quantities
 Embedded Processor Technology
Application Specific Instruction Set Processor
Compromise between Single purpose and General
purpose processor.
Optimize for particular class of applications having
common characteristics.
Provide the benefit of flexibility with performance
and less power and size.
Required large cost to built processor itself and to
built a compiler if these items dont already exist.
 Embedded Processor Technology
Application Specific Instruction Set Processor
Common example of ASIP is DSP processor.
Designed to perform common operations on digital
signals.
Common signal processing task are:
Signal filtering
Transformation
Such operations are math intensive like:
Multiply and add
Shift and add
 IC Technology
A process of implementation of digital gate-
level circuit onto an IC or Chip.
The most popular IC technology is CMOS.
IC technology not depend on processor
technology.
Any type of processor can be mapped by using any
type of IC technology.
 IC Technology
Layers of IC technology
The Bottom layer form by using transistors.
The middle layer form by using logic components.
The top layer form by connecting these
components with wires.
The narrowest line of wire called feature size of
the chip.
 IC Technology
Full-Custom IC technology
Designer designs all the logic cells, circuits and
layout of the circuit.
Not a single existing cell library can be used for
entire design.
Full custom IC is also called as VLSI.
Has high design cost and long turnaround time.
But gives excellent performance with small size and
power dissipation.
Used only for high volume or extremely
performance critical application.
 IC Technology
Semi-custom IC technology
Uses predefined logic cells such as AND, OR,
multiplexers and flip-flops.
Designer connects all these cells as per
functionality requirement.
Much less NRE cost than Full-custom ASIC.
Requires weeks or even months to manufacture IC.
 IC Technology
Programmable Logic Device Technology
All layers are already exist.
By programming, designer can create or destroy
connections between wires that connect gates using
semiconductor switches.
Low NRE cost and instant IC availability.
Bigger in Size, may have higher unit cost, consume
more power and may be slower
Examples
Simple Programmable Logic Array
Complex Programmable Logic Devices
CPLD and FPGA.
 Design Technology
Conversion of designed system functionality
into an implementation.
The functional specifications designer converts
into Register Transfer specification.
The RT level specification then refines into a
Logic specification consisting of boolean
equations.
Finally a gate-level netlist is refines for a
single purpose processor.
 Software Development Life Cycle
A way of describing the planning, designing,
coding, and testing of a software system.
Software Development Life Cycle
Requirement
The needs of the system are outlined.
The manager and user Wish-List is prepared.
Analyst ask the questions about
The proposed use of the software.
What type of data will processed.
How the software should handled the data.
How the data can be access once in the system.
Software Development Life Cycle
Design
The requirements of the system are translate into a
software design plan.
Designer plan a practical working design for the
outlined requirements.
Implementation
The results of the design phase are translated into
the program code.
 Software Development Life Cycle
Testing
The results of the implementation phase are run
through a series of tests to verify the requirements
of the testing.
A testing plan is created
Unit test perform on individual software components
System testing is performed on the software system as a
whole.
 Software Development Life Cycle
Five Development models of Life Cycle are:
Waterfall model
Spiral model
V-shaped model
Rapid Prototype model
Waterfall Life Cycle model
 Waterfall Life Cycle model
The cascading flow of one phase to another
phase is called waterfall life cycle.
Spiral Life Cycle model
 Spiral Life Cycle model
This model is represented in four quadrants for
four phases of development.
Planning, Risk analysis, Engineering and Evaluation.
The four phases is in sequence, repeatedly, in a
series of iterations called spirals.
Requirements are gather during planning phase.
In Risk analysis phase, a process is undertaken to
identify risk and alternate solution.
 Spiral Life Cycle model
A prototype is develop during this phase.
Software is coded and tested during engineering
phase.
During evaluation phase, customer can evaluate
the output.
The angular component represent the progress in
the current spiral.
Radius represent the project cost.
V Life Cycle model
 V-Shaped Lifecycle Model
A phase test plans are developed during each
level of development.
Requirement
During this phase requirements are gathered.
Before these requirements move to development
phase, the system test plan focus on verifying the
functionality specified in the requirement.
 V-Shaped Lifecycle Model
High level design
In this phase developers focus on high level system
architecture and overall system design.
The integration test plan develop in this phase.
Integration test plan will test the ability of pieces of the
finish system software to operate together.
Low level design
Developer focus on the design of individual software
components and corresponding unit test plans are
developed in this phase.
Unit test plan is used to test individual components.
 V-Shaped Lifecycle Model
Implementation
Coding is perform during this phase.
Once coding is complete, the development
progress up the right side of the V.
If a problem arises during testing, the life cycle
reverts back to its corresponding development
phase.
 Rapid Prototyping Lifecycle Model
This model is consumer oriented development.
The first step is to build a rapid prototype and
the client and future users interact and
experiment with the rapid prototype.
Requirements

Iterate
Quick Design

Build Prototype

Customer Evaluation of Prototype

Engineer Final Product

 Comparison Between four models
Features Water fall Spiral Prototype V Shaped
Requirement Frequently
Beginning Beginning Beginning
Specification Changed

Cost Low Expensive High Expensive

Complexity of
Simple Complex Complex Intermediate
system

Risk High Low No Risk Low

Guarantee of
High High Good High
Success
Implementatio Depend on According to
Less Less
n time prototype Project size
Highly
Flexibility Less Flexible Flexible Little flexible
Flexible
 Assignment - 1
Q.1. Explain embedded processor technology.

Q.2. Explain Spiral model.

Q.3. With the help of block diagram explain the

architecture of embedded system.
 References
Raj Kamal, Embedded Systems Architecture,
Programming and Design" 2nd edition, McGraw Hill.