Embedded system and

Development

Rajani Bhandari
Senior Project Manager
HCL Technologies
Topics

Introduction to Embedded systems

How embedded is different from PC
Design constraints in embedded software
Examples of Embedded applications
Software development cycle in embedded
applications
Architecture of embedded applications.
Development Guidelines

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Introduction to Embedded systems

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Introduction of Embedded system

 An embedded system is a combination of computer hardware and

software accomplished with additional mechanical or other parts designed
to perform a Specific Function
 Embedded software is In every electronic device used in real life like
cell phone, pager, digital camera, portable video games, Calculators,
oven, washing machine etc.
 Limited Resources
: :Embedded systems often must cost just a few
dollars, must be sized to fit on a single chip, must perform fast enough to
process data in real-time, and must consume minimum power to extend
battery life. High user expectations in terms of performance

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Connect via peripherals

 Embedded Systems talk with the outside world via peripherals,

such as:
 Serial Communication Interfaces (SCI): RS-232, RS-422, RS-485
etc.
 Universal Serial Bus (USB)
 Multi Media Cards (SD Cards, Compact Flash etc.)
 Networks: Ethernet, Lon Works, etc.
 Analog to Digital/Digital to Analog (ADC/DAC)

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Examples In Your Daily Life

 …wake up …

 …have breakfast …

 …set home safety system …

 …get into your car …

 …on your way to your office…

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Examples In Your Daily Life
(cont’)

 …in Your office…

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Examples In Your Daily Life
(cont’)

 …Back Home …

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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 VCR’s, 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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Embedded Vs PC

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Difference - Embedded and PC

 An embedded system have defined process and function whereas PC

is generic
 Computer system can be manufactured with general requirement and the
manufacturer does not know what the customer will do, while embedded
system is Application Specific .
 Numerous embedded system make up the computer
 Tightly constrained: Embedded system design is tightly constraint.
Important factors to be considered are as cost, size, performance, and
power.
 Reactive and real-time:
 Continually reacts to changes in the system’s environment.
 Must compute certain results in real-time without delay
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Difference - Embedded and PC App- Coding

 Embedded  PC Application

 Closer to the Hardware  Abstracted Hardware

 Use native data types
 Fewer System Resources  Plenty of Resources
 No Operating System  Has an Operating System
 More efficient algorithms
 Higher frequency = higher
power

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Embedded vs PC App - Testing

Embedded PC Application
 Debugging is very difficult  Usually simple to get a basic
 Emulators or simulators are debug output
required at the time of  Can be very sophisticated
development testing

 Usually a simple interface

 Often involves extra hardware
Design challenges

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Design Challenges

Unit Cost- Cost of manufacturing each unit

Cost NON recurring Engg Cost: Monetary cost of designing the system

The physical space required by the system and measured in bytes for
Size software and gates for hardware.

Performance Execution cost

The amount of power consumed which determines life time of battery.

Power Maximum Source of power : Antennas – Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, RF .
Digital displays

Time-to market constraint. Hardware and software development goes in

Time Line parallel
Missing this window – significant loss

Change functionality without heavy NRE cost. Code should be

Flexiblity maintainable
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Design Metrics

Power

Performance Size

NRE
cost

Improving one often leads to a degradation in another

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Examples of embedded system

Car cruise It Compute acceleration Delayed

controllers reacts and deceleration computation System
to brake sensor Failure
and speed

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 Mobile evolution – impact on design matrices

Digital Mobile Wide Band Mobile Broadband Mobile

1980 analog cellular technology Communication 1990 Communication 2000 Communication 2010

Factors Affected
Cost
Design Complexity
Size
Performance
Power Consumption
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Digital camera- An embedded system example

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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Time to Market- Design challenge
Revenues ($)

Time (months)

Market window:
Period during which the product would have highest sales
Average time-to-market constraint is about 8 months. Delays can be costly.

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Design Challenge

After decision of mass production of embedded system and a small

bug found at that time may be very expensive. Even a 1 day delay can
cost equivalent ……… Any Guesses??

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Software Development Life cycle

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Embedded system Life Cycle

Development of Hardware and software goes in parallel which is a major

challenge.
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Architecture of embedded application

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Architecture of embedded system

Application Software

Operating System

Hardware

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Hardware architecture

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Development Guidelines

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 Guidelines for embedded application
development

Memory Guidelines
Data Type
Life time of variable
Memory allocation on heap or stack. Memory should be freed
if not required
Stateless components
Logging and Instrumentation
User Interface
Simple UI
Hour glass as visual indicator for blocking operation
Resolution and LCD size
Design for usability by supporting for touch, stylus driven, 5-
way
Do not update ui frequently
 Power:
 Optimal Power usage
 Transferring data on Air
 Reset Device
 Design for the restoration of configuration
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Key rules for best coding

Maintainability Reliability Efficiency

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Maintenance problems

 Unstructured code

 Insufficient domain knowledge

 Insufficient documentation

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Efficiency

 Optimal Utilization of Resources

 Design and architecture of software
 Memory management

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 Coding standards

 Readability of code
 Size of Function
 Variable naming
 Code Commenting
 Long methods
 Private, public or local variable naming rule
 Formatting and indentation
 Complexity of code
 Multiple return statement
 Nested loop or conditions
 Uninitialized variables
 Duplicate code prone to errors
 Avoid Hard Coding
 Multilingual support
 Use of enum to indicate discrete values
 Reusable code or shared libraries

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 Sample code
// This class provides the functionality
// of adding numbers
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main( )
class Adder{ {
public:
// constructor
Adder a;
Adder(int i = 0)
{ a.addNum(10);
total = i;
}
a.addNum(20);
// interface to outside world a.addNum(30);
// Adds a number and calculates
total
void addNum(int number) cout << "Total " << a.getTotal()
{ <<endl;
total += number; return 0;
}
// interface to outside world
}
//get sum total result
int getTotal()
{
return total;
};
private:
// hidden data from outside world
int total;
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};
Which one is better

bool MyApplication::ReportGenerator:: bool

GenerateReport() MyApplication::ReportGenerator::GenerateReport(
{ )
bool returnValue = false; { if ( ! isAdmin () ) return false ;
if (isAdmin() && if ( ! isConditionOne () ) return false ;
isConditionOne() && if ( ! isConditionTwo () ) return false ;
isConditionTwo() && if ( ! isConditionThree() ) return false ;
isConditionThree()) return generateReport() ;
{ returnValue = generateReport(); } }
return returnValue;
}

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Sample Code
function do_stuff() { function do_stuff() {
// …
if (is_writable($folder)) { // ...
if ($fp =
fopen($file_path,'w')) { if (!is_writable($folder)) {
if ($stuff = return false;
get_some_stuff()) {
}
if
(fwrite($fp,$stuff)) {
if (!$fp = fopen($file_path,'w')) {
// ...
return false;
} else {
}
return false;

if (!$stuff = get_some_stuff()) {
} return false;
} else { }
return false;
} if (fwrite($fp,$stuff)) {
} else { // ...
return } else {
false; return false;
} }
} else { }
return false;
}
}

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 Good Coding and Design brings >>>

Quality software On-time to bring customer

Delight

 



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Questions ??

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Thanks!!

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