POST AND TELECOMMUICATIONS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

CHAPTER 3

Software components of
embedded systems and 8051
microprocessors

Faculty: Computer science - IT1

 MAIN CONTENT

3.1. Device drivers

3.2. Real-time operating system
3.3. Middleware and application software

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 OVERVIEW OF EMBEDDED SYSTEM SOFTWARE

v Software Overview of Embedded Systems

v Operating System: System software
v Application: Application software

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 Chapter 3: Software components

Introduction to embedded software

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 Introduction to embedded software

v Two approaches to building

embedded software: Software
design is based on
conventional procedures.
§ Design based on Embedded
Operating System.

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 Introduction to embedded software

v Software design is based on conventional procedures.

§ Use hyperloops for applications that do not depend on system
response time.
§ Each procedure is executed sequentially :
• 1. Configure shared parameters and perform initialization of hardware
components such as memory and registers.
• 2. Start with the first task and execute it.
• 3. Execute the second task.
• 4. Execute the next task.
• 5. ….
• 6. ….
• 7. Execute the last task.
• 8. Jump to the first task and execute in a thread
• similar.

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 Introduction to embedded software

v Software design is based on conventional

procedures.
§ Advantage :
• No operating system required
• Simple design
• Low price
§ Disadvantage:
• Easily affected by the entire system, if any
an error task
• Lack of processing time

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 Introduction to embedded software

v Software design is based on conventional

procedures.

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 Introduction to embedded software

v Software design based on Embedded Operating

System:
v An operating system contains the operating system.
v Create and run applications on the operating system.
v Can be a generic operating system or a real-time
operating system (RTOS)
§ General operating system:
• unifies the embedded system with the general computing system of the
operating system
• support programming interfaces can be used
§ Real-time operating system :
• embedded products require response time
• contains a software responsible for preventing multitasking, planning
execution schedules, multi-threading, a real-time operating system that
allows flexible scheduling of system resources such as CPU and memory
and output several ways to communicate between tasks
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 Introduction to embedded software

v Software design based on Embedded Operating

System.
§ Advantage :
• No operating system required
• Simple design
• Low price
§ Disadvantage:
• Easily affected by the entire system, if any
an error task
• Lack of processing time

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 3.1 Device drivers
What is Driver?

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 I. DEVICE DRIVER DEFINITIONS (Device driver)

• Device driver: connection between OS and I/O devices.

• Function: translate and convert requests from the OS into

commands that the peripheral controller can understand.

• Is part of the OS kernel (drivers are software modules that

are built separately and installed into the OS when
needed).

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 DEVICE DRIVER DEFINITIONS (Device driver)

• Examples: printer driver, Bluetooth driver...

• A complete system has many drivers installed on

the operating system.

• Device drivers operate in privileged mode: need to

be well designed and secured to avoid malicious
code.

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 DEVICE DRIVER DEFINITIONS (Device driver)

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 Advantages of Device drivers

1. Simplify OS operations

2. Without a device driver, the OS is responsible for

communicating directly with the hardware
overloading the OS.
3. If a new device is installed, the OS must be changed.

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 Key design issues
1. OS / Driver Communication
§ Information exchange(command, data)
§ Support functions that the kernel provides
2. Driver / Hardware Communication
§ Information exchange(command, data)
§ Software communicates with Hardware
§ Hardware communicates with Software
3. Driver Internal Operations
§ Translate command received from OS
§ Arrange the order of requirements
§ Manage data transmission between interfaces(OS và hardware)
§ Accept and process interrupts
§ Maintain consistency of data structures between driver and kernel.

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 Types of Device Drivers

v Block Driver

v Character Driver

v Terminal Driver

v Stream Driver

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 Block Drivers

§ Communicates with the OS through a set of fixed-sized

buffers (block of data).

§ The OS manages the cache of caches and responds to

user requests for data by accessing the cache.

§ The driver is only called when the requested data is not in

the cache or when the cache changes.
§ The driver works with requests from the OS to fill or clear
buffers of a fixed size.

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 Block Drivers

v Ví dụ: disks are applied as block devices.

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 Character Drivers

v Requests with packet sizes of any length of I/O.

v Used for devices that communicate bytes at a time or

with data blocks larger or smaller than the block drivers'
data buffer.
VD: printer

v I/O requests are passed directly to the driver, and the

driver transfers data to VXL memory.

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 Character Drivers

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 Block driver vs Character Drivers

Block Driver Character Driver

Transfer data to the kernel buffer Pass data directly to the user process
cache

Not suitable for devices Suitable for devices that communicate

communicating with variable size in packets of variable size
packets

Can be used to support UNIX-based UNIX-based devices are not

devices supported

Suitable for supporting drives and hard Suitable to support serial port, parallel
drives port, network card, keyboard...

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 Characteristics of a device driver

v Driver is a set of entry points called by the OS.

v One driver includes:

§ Separate data structure for each device.
§ Separate protocol for each driver

v Most drivers are written in one source file.

v The first part of the driver is called the prologue

declaration.

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 Characteristics of a device driver

v Prologue includes: :
§ #include
§ #define
§ Declare variables and their characteristics

v The rest of the driver :

§ Entry points (C functions are referenced by the OS)
§ Routines (C functions interact with the driver)

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 3.2 . Real Time Operating System (RTOS)

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 II. Real Time Operating System (RTOS)

• Definition: is a multi-tasking operating system for

applications with real-time constraints.
• Real-time constraints: require a certain delay for
an event and system response.

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 Benefits of Real Time Operating System (RTOS)

• Divide the project into smaller parts to "treat".

• Easily divide work in group work.

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 Basic functions

• Kernel
• Process management
• Resource management
• Equipment management
• Manage I/O peripheral device systems
• Manage network devices

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 Process management

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 Hierarchy of priority processes

• Hierarchy of user priorities, called static priority

hierarchy, or real-time priority hierarchy.

• Real-time priority hierarchy is higher than static

priority hierarchy and idle priority hierarchy.

• Idle priority tasks run when there are no high

priority tasks running.

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 Managing progress through intervention

• The RTOS interrupts a low-priority process when

a message or event is waiting for the high-
priority process.

• The RTOS has intervention points at the end of

critical code, and thus the RTOS can be
intervened at these points by real-time high
priority tasks.

• A small portion of RTOS functions are non-

interferable.
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 Process management by inheriting priority levels
(priority inheritance)

• Priority inheritance allows sharing resources

with low priority tasks.

• A medium priority task will not be able to

interfere with a low priority task while it is locked
to run with the high priority task.

• Helps improve system performance.

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 Design of RTOS

• An embedded system with a single CPU can run

only one process at a time.

• A process at any given time can be run by an

ISR, a kernel function, or a task.

• Run threads in the kernel to increase processing

speed.

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 RTOS design

• Provides efficient handling of ISRs, drivers,

ISTs, streams...

• Turn interrupts on and off

• Allocate and deallocate memory at fixed times

and memory blocks.

• Provides efficient scheduling, running, and

stopping of tasks in case of multiple tasks.

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 RTOS design

• Managing I/O (devices, files, mailboxes...)

becomes easy with RTOS

• Effectively manage multiple states of CPUs,

devices such as internal and external hard
drives, virtual devices...

• An embedded system running an OS makes

working with multiple inputs simpler (through
drivers) and processing data easier.

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 RTOS design

• Managing I/O (devices, files, mailboxes...)

becomes easy with RTOS
• Effectively manage multiple states of CPUs,
devices such as internal and external hard
drives, and virtual devices.

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 Options for RTOS

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 Complex multitasking embedded system design
requirements

• IDE
• C/C++ multitasking functions
• Real-time clock – timers
• Schedule(scheduler)
• Device drivers, device manager
• Communication functions between processes,
multi-threaded processing functions...
• Other functions : TCP/IP, USB port, network
• Testing and debugging software for RTOS
testing

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 Basic functions in RTOS

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 Classification of RTOSes

• In-house Developed RTOSes

1. Codes are written for specific application or
product requirements.
2. Requirements can be refined.

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 Classification of RTOSes

• Commercial RTOSes
1. Provide testing and debugging tools.
2. Supports many VXL architectures (ARM, x86...)
3. Support GUIs
4. Supports communication with many devices and many
different connection protocols.
5. Optimized software and device support.
6. Simplify the developer's coding process.
7. Speed up product development.
8. Save time and maintenance costs.

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 Classification of RTOSes

• Commercial RTOSes
1. Provide testing and debugging tools.
2. Supports many VXL architectures (ARM, x86...)
3. Support GUIs
4. Supports communication with many devices and many
different connection protocols.
5. Optimized software and device support.
6. Simplify the developer's coding process.
7. Speed up product development.
8. Save time and maintenance costs.

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 Classification of RTOSes

• General purposes OS with RTOS

1. Linux, Windows OS.
2. Has a strong GUI configuration, many multimedia
interfaces, and low price.
3. Supports GUIs

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 III. Middleware, Application

1. Middleware: located in many places, separate from the

app, OS, and drivers.
2. Application: The software sits at the top layer,
communicating with the user.

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 Middleware

1. Middleware: considered middleware, ensuring

flexibility, security and helping to link software at
adjacent layers.
2. Contains service functions, which are called repeatedly
by other software.

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 Middleware (ví dụ)

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 What does embedded software development require?

1. Compilation software

2. Development board

3. Loader/Debugger

4. Libraries (for ARM core, peripheral drivers...)

5. Documents (datasheet)

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 Steps to compile software in IDE
(translation software)

1. Create project

2. Configure the compiler software (choose chip type,

select loader circuit type)

3. Write programs and compile

4. Load into the flash memory of the development board

5. Run the program and check for errors

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