Embedded Systems

Instructor: Shaftab Ahmed

Lecture # 1
Reference
Embedded System Design
Vahid / Givargis
 What is an Embedded System

 An embedded system is a special-purpose

computer system designed to perform one or a few
dedicated functions, often with real-time computing
constraints.
 It is usually a part of complete device including
hardware and mechanical parts.
 On the other hand a general-purpose computer like
Personal Computer, can do many different tasks
depending on programming.
 Embedded systems control many of the common
devices in use today e.g. Washing Machine,
Camera, Mobile and Microwave Oven etc.
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 More Examples of Embedded Systems

 Air conditioner  Navigation system

 ATM machine  PDA
 Battery charger
 Photocopier
 Digital camera
 Printer
 Router
 DVD player
 Scanner
 Fax machine  TV
 Home security system  Video game console
 Mobile phone  Wearable computer
 Modem

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 History

 In the earliest years of

computers in 1930 – 40s,
computers were sometimes
dedicated to a single purpose
task.

 One of the first recognizably

modern embedded system
was the Apollo Guidance
Computer
Developed by Charles Stark
Draper at the MIT
Instrumentation Laboratory.

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 Characteristics (1/4)

 Special-purpose
 Typically designed to

execute a single program

sequence repeatedly
 Washing Machines
 Microwave Oven

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 Characteristics (2/4)

 Tightly constrained
 Low cost

 Simple systems

 Fewer components based

 Performs functions fast

enough
 Minimum power

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 Characteristics (3/4)

 Reactive and real-time

 Reactive: Continually reacts to external events

 Real-time: Must compute certain results in real-time

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 Characteristics (4/4)

 Hardware and software co-

exist
 The software written for

embedded systems is
often called firmware
 Is stored in read-only

memory or Flash memory

chips rather than a disk
drive

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 Differences from usual computer programs

 Several components of vastly

different functionalities are found in
embedded system software
 Each software component execution
speed must be optimum
 Software must have controlled
complexity and must be thoroughly
tested and debugged for errors
 Response time constraint and strict
deadlines
 All components must use the
memory optimally

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 Real-Time Operating System

 RTOS is essential for large scale embedded systems.

 It is an Operating System for response time-controlled and event-
controlled processes.

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 Real-Time Operating System

 Modules of a RTOS include:

1. Basic OS function
2. Time Management
3. Predictability
4. Priorities Management
5. IPC Synchronization
6. Time slicing
7. Hard and soft real-time operability

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 Embedded OS players

 Mentor Graphics VRTX

 Palm Computing PalmOS
 Symbian SymbianOS
 Real-time control Embedded NT/XP
 Internet devices Windows CE (CE.NET)
 Handheld PC’s and PDA’s Pocket PC 2002
 Open Software RTLinux
 Tiny Operating System TOS

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 System on chip (SoC)

 SoC Integrates all components of a computer or other

electronic system into a single integrated circuit (chip).
 It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often
radio-frequency functions – all on one chip.
 Typical application of SOC is embedded systems like
Microwave oven controller.
 SiP (System in Package) contains a SoC in an
application package to perform intelligent functions

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 Software Development

 The software development process can be

represented by lifecycle e.g.
SDLC System Development Life Cycle
Waterfall or Linear incremental model
 Four stages of developing an embedded system
 Analysis

 Design

 Implementation

 Maintenance

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 User Interface

 Embedded systems range from

 No user interface at all

 Dedicated only to one task

 Full user interfaces similar to

desktop operating systems in

devices such as PDAs.

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 Digital Camera Functional Block Diagram

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 Challenges and Opportunities

Challenges
 Diversity of operating environments and platforms

poses a real challenge in deploying software across

multiple platforms and configurations.
 Portability and reusability of the applications.

Opportunities
 Open Software Development i.e. Use of embedded

operating systems providing POSIX interface.

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 Implementation Issues

 Computing performance
In a real time embedded control environment is not simply an
instructions- per-second rating.
 While raw computational performance is important, other

factors which are vital to system performance include interrupt

response characteristics, context switching over head, and I/O
performance.
 Since real time tasks are characterized by frequent, often

unpredictable events, the performance of a processor at

handling interrupts is crucial to its suitability for real time
processing.
 Since a control application usually involves a reasonable

amount of communication with the outside world (such as

reading sensors and activating control circuits), good I/O
performance is also important.
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 Implementation Issues:

 The same resource must be shared between different

tasks.
 Sharing

As a result of this competition for the CPU use, the

timing of the tasks is not fully determined and the
time delays should be taken into account.
 Alternative control algorithms should be ready to get
the control of the process.
 Adaptation:

Working in a changeable environment, the control

goals and options may change and the control
algorithms should be adequate to new scenarios.

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 Implementation Issues:


Working conditions, such as priority, allocated time and
memory or signals availability may change.
 Thus, complexity, structure and basic properties of

the control system will change.

 Variable delays should be considered.
 The synchronicity of signals cannot be ensured

anymore.
 Validation and certification.
 Any embedded control system should be proved to be

reliable and safety operation should be ensured.

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 General Purpose Processors

Data Path consists of the

circuitry for transforming data
and for storing temporary data.
It contains ALU and Register File

The functionality available in

General Purpose Processors
include:
Control Unit
CPU Register files
On-Chip Multi level Caches
Instruction Set
Architecture
On-Chip peripherals
Pipeline Requirements
Multiplicity of CPU cores
21
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Embedded Systems Spring 2011 Shaftab Ahmed
Computation
 Single-purpose processors (SPP)

Single-purpose processors contain

digital circuits designed to execute
exactly one program e.g. coprocessor,
accelerator or peripheral
Features
 Contains only the components
needed to execute a single program
 No program memory
Benefits
 Fast
 Low power
 Small size
 Small Datapath

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 Digital Signal Processor (DSP)

 DSP is an example of single purpose processor that is highly

optimized to process large amounts of data
 It usually contains many registers, memory blocks, multipliers
and other arithmetic units
 DSPs are used for filtering, transformation etc using functions
like Multiply and Accumulate etc
 The source for such data may be a digital camera, voice packet or
an audio clip

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 Application-specific processors (ASP)

 Programmable processor optimized for a particular

class of applications having common characteristics
 Compromise between general-purpose and single-
purpose processors
Features
 Program memory

 Optimized datapath

 Special functional units

Benefits
 Some flexibility

 Good performance, size and power

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 Embedded Processors

 An Embedded Processor is a special purpose processor which

when used in an embedded system design can perform only
dedicated one or few tasks.
 It differs from the normal general purpose computers like
servers and personal computers in the sense that later can be
programmed to perform diverse range of tasks.
 Why design an embedded processor when the general purpose
can serve the same purpose?
 Cost reduction

 Energy efficiency

 Size reduction (Such as SmartDust in MEMS/mote)

 Tailored for almost anything depending upon requirements

such as specialized Signal Processing capability

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 Embedded Processors

Some of the areas of application for Embedded Processors

include:
 Portable Devices: PDA’s, Digital Cameras, MP3 players,
Mobile phones
 Automotives: automobile engine control systems,
Tracking systems, Functionality check systems
 Networking: Ethernet switches, routers
 Medical Equipment: Medical Imaging and video of inside
of body, Ultrasounds etc
 Industrial Controls: Nuclear Reactor Control, Lathe
Machine Controls etc

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 Comparison of GPP and Embedded Processor

Functional Block Diagram of the Functional Block Diagram of the

embedded processor General purpose CISC processor.

In addition to differences above

the instruction set architecture is also different
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 Embedded Processing Areas

The latest application and research areas for embedded

processor architectures include:
 Wearable Computing

 Ubiquitous Computing

 System On Chip

 Multiprocessor System On Chip

 Network on Chip

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 Full-custom IC

All layers are optimized for an embedded system’s

particular digital implementation like:
 Placing transistors

 Sizing transistors

 Routing wires

Benefits
 Excellent performance, smallest size, low power

 Drawbacks

 High Non-Recurring Engineering (NRE) cost (e.g.,

$300k), long time-to-market, high risk

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 Gate Array

Features
 Lower layers are fully or partially built

 Designers are left with routing of wires and maybe

placing some blocks

Benefits
Good performance, good size, less NRE cost than a
full-custom implementation (perhaps $10k to $100k)
Drawbacks
Still require weeks to months to develop

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 Standard Cell

Features
Instead of designing the actual silicon, the designer
uses pre-built “blocks” that have already been tested
and proven.
Benefits
Good performance, good size, less NRE cost than a
full-custom implementation (perhaps $10k to $100k)
Drawbacks
Still require weeks to months to develop

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 PLD (Programmable Logic Device)

All layers already exist

 Designers can purchase an IC

 Connections on the IC are either created or

destroyed to implement desired functionality

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 PLD (Programmable Logic Device)

Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)

Benefits
 Low NRE costs, almost instant IC availability

Drawbacks
 Bigger, expensive (perhaps $30 per unit), power

hungry, slower

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 Independence of processor & IC technologies

Basic tradeoff
 General vs. custom

 Processor technology or IC technology

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 ES development methodology

 Classical development was done through separate

hardware and software developer teams who
integrated their work towards the end which lacked in
desired optimization levels and turn around time etc.
 Recent trend is to use a Unified view of the design
process for Hardware and Software
 Hardware synthesis tools have changed the role of
hardware designers essentially to write sequential
programs through HDL
 Hardware / Software Co-Design is a field that
emphasizes a unified view of hardware and software
for which synthesis tools and simulators are used

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 Unified View of Design Process

Co Design Ladder
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 Conclusion Revisiting

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 Embedded Processor Architecture

Factors influencing embedded processor architecture:

Real-time processing:
Some computation must be done within a certain time frame, or
else the system would fail. Consider the following example:
A system fetching/compressing/sending voice data
Timing constraint:
It must fetch the voice data after every specified interval, it
must compress/decompress/send the audio data within a
certain time frame (e.g. 22.5 msec in a MELP algorithm), and
then transmit it to a remote end or human ear in that
particular time, or else there may be un-acceptable voice quality
degradation.

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 Embedded Processor Architecture
The real-time processing can further be divided into two categories:
 Hard real-time system:

It is the one in which there is an absolute maximum time in

which a certain processing has to complete.
 For example voice compression/processing must complete within a
certain dead line always.
 Dynamic branch predictions and cache mechanisms of the general
purpose processors are advantageous for the non-real-time
applications, but would result in a catastrophe in the hard real-time
requirements.
 Soft real-time system:
It is the one in which the average time of a particular task and
the number of instances may exceed by a limited time
 For example nullifying the effect of the varying inter-arrival times of
voice packets through jitter buffers over a digital voice communication
link.

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 Embedded Processor Architecture
Special signal processing capabilities
 DSPs are used for filtering, transformation etc using

functions like Multiply and Accumulate etc

 They usually require many registers, memory

blocks, multipliers and other arithmetic units

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 Embedded Processor Architecture
 Power consumption:
(i) These are mostly battery operated systems so long operation
life before recharging.
(ii) virtually no special cooling arrangement required decreasing
cost as well as size
(iii) The application code also has to dictate the power
consumption: least instruction + more work by processor =
least power consumption
 Limited memory:
The memory size is always less in an embedded application as
only few or only one program would be required to run on it. This
factor is determined by many things.
(i) size would become smaller
(ii) Overall system cost would be reduced
(iii) System would consume much less power

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