Embedded systems Design A unified hardware and software introduction


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Introduction
Embedded systems overview
What are they?
Design challenge – optimizing design metrics
Technologies
Processor technologies
IC technologies
Design technologies

Embedded systems overview
Computing systems are everywhere
Most of us think of “desktop” computers
PC’s
Laptops
Mainframes
Servers
But there’s another type of computing system
Far more common...
Embedded computing systems
Computing systems embedded within electronic devices
Hard to define. Nearly any computing system other than a desktop computer
Billions of units produced yearly, versus millions of desktop units
Perhaps 50 per household and per automobile

Some common characteristics of embedded systems

Single-functioned
Executes a single program, repeatedly
Tightly-constrained
Low cost, low power, small, fast, etc.
Reactive and real-time
Continually reacts to changes in the system’s environment
Must compute certain results in real-time without delay

Design challenge – optimizing design metrics

Obvious design goal:
Construct an implementation with desired functionality
Key design challenge:
Simultaneously optimize numerous design metrics
Design metric
A measurable feature of a system’s implementation
Optimizing design metrics is a key challenge
Common metrics
Unit cost: the monetary cost of manufacturing each copy of the system, excluding NRE cost
NRE cost (Non-Recurring Engineering cost): The one-time monetary cost of designing the system
Size: the physical space required by the system
Performance: the execution time or throughput of the system
Power: the amount of power consumed by the system
Flexibility: the ability to change the functionality of the system without incurring heavy NRE cost