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Characteristics and quality attributes of embedded systems

Module – 2
Embedded System Design Concepts

Characteristics and Quality Attributes of Embedded Systems

Characteristics of Embedded Systems

 Embedded systems possess certain specific characteristics. These characteristics are unique
to each embedded system.
 Some of the important characteristics of an embedded system are:
1. Application and domain specific
2. Reactive and Real Time
3. Operates in harsh environments
4. Distributed
5. Small size and weight
6. Power concerns

Application and Domain Specific

 Each embedded system has certain functions to perform and they are developed in such a
manner to do the intended functions only.
 They cannot be used for any other purpose.
 For example, the embedded control unit of a microwave oven cannot be replaced with an
air conditioner's embedded control unit, because the embedded control units of
microwave oven and air conditioner are specifically designed to perform certain specific
tasks.
 Also, an embedded control unit developed for a particular domain, say telecom, cannot be
replaced with another control unit designed to serve another domain like consumer
electronics.

Reactive and Real Time

 Embedded systems are in constant interaction with the real world through sensors and
user-defined input devices which are connected to the input port of the system.
 Any changes happening in the real world (which is called an Event) are captured by the
sensors or input devices in Real Time and the control algorithm running inside the unit
reacts in a designed manner to bring the controlled output variables to the desired level.
 Embedded systems produce changes in output in response to the changes in the input. So,
they are generally referred as Reactive Systems.
 Real Time System operation means the timing behaviour of the system should be
deterministic.
 The system should respond to requests or tasks in a known amount of time.
 A Real Time system should not miss any deadlines for tasks or operations.
 It is not necessary that all embedded systems should be Real Time in operations.

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 Embedded applications or systems which are mission critical, like flight control systems,
Antilock Brake Systems (ABS), etc. are examples of Real Time systems.

Operates in Harsh Environment

 The environment in which the embedded system deployed may be a dusty one or a high
temperature zone or an area subject to vibrations and shock.
 Systems placed in such areas should be capable to withstand all these adverse operating
conditions.
 The design should take care of the operating conditions of the area where the system is
going to implement.
 For example, if the system needs to be deployed in a high temperature zone, then all the
components used in the system should be of high temperature grade. Also, proper shock
absorption techniques should be provided to systems which are going to be commissioned
in places subject to high shock.
 Power supply fluctuations, corrosion and component aging, etc. are the other factors that
need to be taken into consideration for embedded systems to work in harsh environments.

Distributed

 The term distributed means that embedded systems may be a part of larger systems.
 Many numbers of such distributed embedded systems form a single large embedded
control unit.
 For example, an automatic vending machine. It contains a card reader (for pre-paid
vending systems), a vending unit, etc. Each of them is independent embedded units but
they work together to perform the overall vending function.
 Another example is the Automatic Teller Machine (ATM). It contains a card reader
embedded unit, responsible for reading and validating the user's ATM card, transaction
unit for performing transactions, a currency counter for dispatching/vending currency to
the authorised person and a printer unit for printing the transaction details.
 We can visualise these as independent embedded systems, but they work together to
achieve a common goal.
 Another typical example of a distributed embedded system is the Supervisory Control And
Data Acquisition (SCADA) system used in Control & Instrumentation applications, which
contains physically distributed individual embedded control units connected to a
supervisory module.

Small Weight and Size

 Product aesthetics is an important factor in choosing a product.

 For example, when you plan to buy a new mobile phone, you may make a comparative
study on the pros and cons of the products available in the market.
 Definitely the product aesthetics (size, weight, shape, style, etc.) will be one of the deciding
factors to choose a product.
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 People believe in the phrase "Small is beautiful". Moreover, it is convenient to handle a

compact device than a bulky product.
 In embedded domain also compactness is a significant deciding factor.
 Most of the application demands small sized and low weight products.

Power Concerns

 Power management is another important factor that needs to be considered in designing

embedded systems.
 Embedded systems should be designed in such a way as to minimize the heat dissipation
by the system.
 The production of high amount of heat demands cooling requirements like cooling fans
which in turn occupies additional space and make the system bulky.
 Select the design according to the low power components like low dropout regulators, and
controllers/processors with power saving modes.
 Also power management is a critical constraint in battery operated application. The more
the power consumption the less is the battery life.

Quality Attributes of Embedded Systems

 Quality attributes are the non-functional requirements that need to be documented

properly in any system design.
 If the quality attributes are more concrete and measurable it will give a positive impact on
the system development process and the end product.
 The quality attributes in any embedded system development are broadly classified into two:
• Operational Quality Attributes
• Non-Operational Quality Attributes

Operational Quality Attributes

 The operational quality attributes represent the relevant quality attributes related to the
embedded system when it is in the operational mode or 'online' mode.
 The important operational quality attributes are:
1. Response
2. Throughput
3. Reliability
4. Maintainability
5. Security
6. Safety
Response

 Response is a measure of quickness of the system.

 It gives you an idea about how fast the system is tracking the changes in input variables.
 Most of the embedded systems demand fast response which should be almost Real Time.

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 For example, an embedded system deployed in flight control application should respond
in a Real Time manner. Any response delay in the system will create potential damages to
the safety of the flight as well as the passengers.
 It is not necessary that all embedded systems should be Real Time in response. For
example, the response time requirement for an electronic toy is not at all time-critical.
There is no specific deadline that this system should respond within this particular timeline.
Throughput

 Throughput deals with the efficiency of a system.

 Throughput can be defined as the rate of production or operation of adefined process over
a stated period of time.
 The rates can be expressed in terms of units of products, batches produced, or any other
meaningful measurements. In the case of a Card Reader, throughput means how many
transactions the Reader can perform in a minute or in an hour or in a day.
 Throughput is generally measured in terms of 'Benchmark’. A 'Benchmark' is a reference
point by which something can be measured. Benchmark can be a set of performance
criteria that a product is expected to meet or a standard product that can be used for
comparing other products of the same product line.

Reliability

 Reliability is a measure of how much percentage you can rely upon the proper functioning
of the system or what is the percentage susceptibility of the system to failures.
 System reliability is defined using two terms:
 Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): Gives the frequency of failures in
hours/weeks/months.
 Mean Time To Repair (MTTR): Specifies how long the system is allowed to be out of
order following a failure. For an embedded system with critical application need, it should
be of the order of minutes.

Maintainability

 Maintainability deals with support and maintenance to the end user or client in case of
technical issues and product failures or on the basis of a routine system check-up.
 Reliability and maintainability are considered as two complementary disciplines.
 A more reliable system means a system with less corrective maintainability requirements
and vice versa.
 Maintainability can be broadly classified into two categories:
 Scheduled or Periodic Maintenance (preventive maintenance): For example,
replacing the cartridge of a printer after each 'n' number of printouts to get quality
prints.
 Maintenance to unexpected failures (corrective maintenance): For example,
repairing the printer if the paper feeding part fails.
 Maintainability is also an indication of the availability of the product for use.
 In any embedded system design, the ideal value for availability is expressed as

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Security

 Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability are the three major measures of information
security.
 Confidentiality deals with the protection of data and application from unauthorised
disclosure.
 Integrity deals with the protection of data and application from unauthorised modification.
 Availability deals with protection of data and application from unauthorized users.
 A very good example of the 'Security' aspect in an embedded product is a Personal Digital
Assistant (PDA). The PDA can be either a shared resource (e.g. PDAs used in LAB setups)
or an individual one.
 If it is a shared one there should be some mechanism in the form of a user name and
password to access into a particular person's profile—This is an example of 'Availability’.
 Also, all data and applications present in the PDA need not be accessible to all users.
 Some of them are specifically accessible to administrators only.
 For achieving this, Administrator and user levels of security should be implemented —An
example of Confidentiality.
 Some data present in the PDA may be visible to all users but there may not be necessary
permissions to alter the data by the users.
 That is Read Only access is allocated to all users—An example of Integrity.

Safety

 Safety deals with the possible damages that can happen to the operators, public and the
environment due to the breakdown of an embedded system or due to the emission of
radioactive or hazardous materials from the embedded products.
 The breakdown of an embedded system may occur due to a hardware failure or a firmware
failure.
 Safety analysis is a must in product engineering to evaluate the anticipated damages and
determine the best course of action to bring down the consequences of the damages to an
acceptable level.
 Some of the safety threats are sudden (like product breakdown) and some of them are
gradual (like hazardous emissions from the product).

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Non-Operational Quality Attributes

 The quality attributes that needs to be addressed for the product 'not’ on the basis of
operational aspects are grouped under this category.
 The important non-operational quality attributes are:
1. Testability & Debug-ability
2. Evolvability
3. Portability
4. Time-to-prototype and market
5. Per unit and total cost

Testability & Debug-ability

 Testability deals with how easily one can test his/her design, application and by which
means he/she can test it.
 For an embedded product, testability is applicable to both the embedded hardware
and firmware.
 Embedded hardware testing ensures that the peripherals and the total hardware
functions in the desired manner, whereas firmware testing ensures that the firmware
is functioning in the expected way.
 Debug-ability is a means of debugging the product as such for figuring out the probable
sources that create unexpected behaviour in the total system.
 Debug-ability has two aspects in the embedded system development context, namely,
hardware level debugging and firmware level debugging.
 Hardware debugging is used for figuring out the issues created by hardware problems
whereas firmware debugging is employed to figure out the probable errors that appear
as a result of flaws in the firmware.

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Evolvability
 For an embedded system, the quality attribute 'Evolvability’ refers to the ease with which
the embedded product (including firmware and hardware) can be modified to take
advantage of new firmware or hardware technologies.

Portability

 Portability is a measure of 'system independence’.

 An embedded product is said to be portable if the product is capable of functioning 'as
such' in various environments, target processors/controllers and embedded operating
systems.
 A standard embedded product should always be flexible and portable.
 In embedded products, the term 'porting' represents the migration of the embedded
firmware written for one target processor (e.g. Intel x86) to a different target processor
(say Hitachi SH3 processor).
 If the firmware is written in a high level language like ‘C’, it is very easy to port the firmware
 If the firmware is written in Assembly Language for a particular family of processor (say
x86 family), the portability is poor.

Time-to-Prototype and Market

 Time-to-market is the time elapsed between the conceptualisation of a product and the
time at which the product is ready for selling (for commercial product) or use (for non-
commercial products).
 The commercial embedded product market is highly competitive and time-to-market the
product is a critical factor in the success of a commercial embedded product.
 Competitor might release their product before you do.
 The technology used might have superseded with a new technology.
 Product prototyping helps a lot in reducing time-to-market.
 Prototyping is an informal kind of rapid product development in which the important
features of the product under consideration are developed.
 The time-to-prototype is also another critical factor.
• If the prototype is developed faster, the actual estimated development time can be
brought down significantly.
• In order to shorten the time to prototype, make use of all possible options like the
use of off-the-shelf components, re-usable assets, etc.

Per Unit Cost and Revenue

 Cost is a factor which is closely monitored by both end user and product manufacturer.
 Cost is a highly sensitive factor for commercial products.
 Any failure to position the cost of a commercial product at a nominal rate, may lead to the
failure of the product in the market.
 Proper market study and cost benefit analysis should be carried out before taking a decision
on the per-unit cost of the embedded product.
 The budget and total system cost should be properly balanced to provide a marginal profit.
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Characteristics and quality attributes of embedded systems

 The product life cycle of every embedded product has different phases:
Design and Development Phase:
 The product idea generation, prototyping, Roadmap definition, actual product design and
development are the activities carried out during this phase. There is only investment and
no returns.
Product Introduction Phase:
 Once the product is ready to sell, it is introduced to the market. During the initial period
the sales and revenue will be low. There won't be much competition and the product sales
and revenue increases with time.
Growth Phase
 The product grabs high market share.
Maturity Phase:
 The growth and sales will be steady and the revenue reaches at its peak.
Product Retirement/Decline Phase:
 Drop in sales volume, market share and revenue.
 The decline happens due to various reasons like competition from similar product with
enhanced features or technology changes, etc.
 At some point of the decline stage, the manufacturer announces discontinuing of the
product.
 The different stages of the embedded products life cycle—revenue, unit cost and profit in
each stage are represented in the following Product Life-cycle graph

 From the graph, it is clear that the total revenue increases from the product introduction
stage to the product maturity stage.
 The revenue peaks at the maturity stage and starts falling in the decline/retirement Stage.
 The unit cost is very high during the introductory stage. A typical example is cell phone; if
you buy a new model of cell phone during its launch time, the price will be high and you
will get the same model with a very reduced price after three or four months of its
launching).
 The profit increases with increase in sales and attains a steady value and then falls with a
dip in sales.
 You can see a negative value for profit during the initial period.
 It is because during the product development phase there is only investment and no
returns.
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 Profit occurs only when the total returns exceed the investment and operating cost.

Embedded Systems –Application and Domain Specific

Washing Machine – Application-Specific Embedded System

 Washing machine is a typical example of an embedded system providing extensive support

in home automation applications.
 An embedded system contains sensors, actuators, control unit and application- specific
user interfaces like keyboards, display units, etc.
 All these components can be seen in a washing machine.

 The actuator part of the washing machine consists of a motorised agitator, tumble tub,
water drawing pump and inlet valve to control the flow of water into the unit.
 The sensor part consists of the water temperature sensor, level sensor, etc. The control
part contains a microprocessor/controller based board with interfaces to the sensors and
actuators.
 The sensor data is fed back to the control unit and the control unit generates the necessary
actuator outputs.
 The control unit also provides connectivity to user interfaces like keypad for setting the
washing time, selecting the type of material to be washed like light, medium, heavy duty,
etc. User feedback is reflected through the display unit and LEDs connected to the control
board.
 Washing machine comes in two models, namely, top loading and front loading machines.
 In top loading models the agitator of the machine twists back and forth and pulls the cloth
down to the bottom of the tub.
 On reaching the bottom of the tub the clothes work their way back upto the top of the
tub where the agitator grabs them again and repeats the mechanism.
 In the front loading machines, the clothes are tumbled and plunged into the water over
and over again.
 This is the first phase of washing.

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 In the second phase of washing, water is pumped out from the tub and the inner tub uses
centrifugal force to wring out more water from the clothes by spinning at several hundred
Rotations Per Minute (RPM).
 This is called a 'Spin Phase’.
 The inner tub of the machine contains a number of holes and during the spin cycle the
inner tub spins, and forces the water out through these holes to the stationary outer tub
from which it is drained off through the outlet pipe.
 The design of washing machines may vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but the
general principle underlying in the working of the washing machine remains the same.
 The basic controls consist of a timer, cycle selector mechanism, water temperature selector,
load size selector and start button.
 The mechanism includes the motor, transmission, clutch, pump, agitator, inner tub, outer
tub and water inlet valve.
 Water inlet valve connects to the water supply line using at home and regulates the flow
of water into the tub.
 The integrated control panel consists of a microprocessor/controller based board with
I/O interfaces and a control algorithm running in it.
 Input interface includes the keyboard which consists of wash type selector namely Wash,
Spin and Rinse, cloth type selector namely Light, Medium, Heavy duty and washing time
setting, etc.
 The output interface consists of LED/LCD displays, status indication LEDs, etc.
connected to the I/O bus of the controller.
 The other types of I/O interfaces which are invisible to the end user are different kinds of
sensor interfaces, namely, water temperature sensor, water level sensor, etc. and actuator
interface including motor control for agitator and tub movement control, inlet water flow
control, etc.

Automotive – Domain-Specific Embedded System

The major application domains of embedded systems are consumer, industrial, automotive,
telecom, etc.
Figure below gives an overview of the various types of electronic control units employed
automotive applications.

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 Automotive embedded systems are the one where electronics take control over the
mechanical systems.
 The presence of automotive embedded system in a vehicle varies from simple mirror and
wiper controls to complex air bag controller and antilock brake systems (ABS).
 Automotive embedded systems are normally built around microcontrollers or DSPs or a
hybrid of the two and are generally known as Electronic Control Units (ECUs).
 The number of embedded controllers in an ordinary vehicle varies from 20 to 40 whereas
a luxury vehicle like Mercedes S and BMW 7 may contain 75 to 100 numbers of embedded
controllers.
 The first embedded system used in automotive application was the microprocessor based
fuel injection system introduced by Volkswagen 1600 in 1968.
 The electronic control units (ECUs) used in the automotive embedded industry can be
broadly classified into two:
 High-speed Electronic Control Units (HECUs):
 These are deployed in critical control units requiring fast response.
 They include fuel injection systems, antilock brake systems, engine control, electronic
throttle, steering controls, transmission control unit and central control unit.
 Low-speed Electronic Control Units (LECUs):
 These are deployed in applications where response time is not so critical.
 They generally are built around low cost microprocessors/microcontrollers and digital
signal processors.
 Audio controllers, passenger and driver door locks, door glass controls (power
windows), wiper control, mirror control, seat control systems, head lamp and tail lamp
controls, sun roof control unit etc. are examples of LECUs.
 Automotive applications make use of serial buses for communication, which greatly
reduces the amount of wiring required inside a vehicle.
 Different types of serial interface buses are:
• Controller Area Network (CAN) Bus
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• Local Interconnect Network (LIN) Bus

• Media-Oriented System Transport (MOST) Bus
 Controller Area Network (CAN) Bus
• CAN Bus was originally proposed by Robert Bosch, pioneer in the Automotive
embedded solution providers.
• It supports medium speed (ISO11519-class B with data rates up to 125 Kbps) and
high speed (IS011898 class C with data rates up to 1 Mbps) data transfer.
• CAN is an event-driven protocol interface with support for error handling in data
transmission.
• It is generally employed in safety system like airbag control; power train systems like
engine control and Antilock Brake System (ABS); and navigation systems like GPS.
 Local Interconnect Network (LIN) Bus
• LIN bus is a single master multiple slave (up to 16 independent slave nodes)
communication interface.
• LIN is a low speed, single wire communication interface with support for data rates
up to 20 Kbps and is used for sensor/actuator interfacing.
• LIN bus follows the master communication triggering technique to eliminate the
possible bus arbitration problem that can occur by the simultaneous talking of
different slave nodes connected to a single interface bus.
• LIN bus is employed in applications like mirror controls, fan controls, seat
positioning controls, window controls, and position controls where response time is
not a critical issue.
 Media-Oriented System Transport (MOST) Bus
• MOST Bus is targeted for automotive audio/video equipment interfacing.
• It is a multimedia fibre-optic point-to-point network implemented in a star, ring or
daisy-chained topology over optical fibre cables.
• The MOST bus specifications define the physical (electrical and optical parameters)
layer as well as the application layer, network layer, and media access control.
• MOST bus is an optical fibre cable connected between the Electrical Optical
Converter (EOC) and Optical Electrical Converter (OEC), which would translate into
the optical cable MOST bus.

Key Players of the Automotive Embedded Market

 The key players of the automotive embedded market can be visualised in three verticals
namely, silicon providers, tools and platform providers and solution providers.
 Silicon Providers
• They are responsible for providing the necessary chips which are used in the control
application development.
• The chip may be a standard product like microcontroller or DSP or ADC/DAC
chips.
• Some applications may require specific chips and they are manufactured as
Application Specific Integrated Chip (ASIC).
• The leading silicon providers in the automotive industry are Analog Devices, Xilinx,
Atmel, Maxim/Dallas, NXP Semiconductors, Renesas, Texas Instruments, Fujitsu,
Infineon, NEC, etc.

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 Tools and Platform Providers

• They are manufacturers and suppliers of various kinds of development tools and
Real Time Embedded Operating Systems for developing and debugging different
control unit related applications.
• Some of the leading suppliers of tools and platforms in automotive embedded
applications are ENEA, The MathWorks, MATLAB, Keil Software, Lauterbach,
ARTiSAN, Microsoft, etc.
 Solution Providers
• They supply Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and complete solution for
automotive applications making use of the chips, platforms and different development
tools.
• The major players of this domain Bosch Automotive, DENSO Automotive, Infosys
Technologies, Delphi, etc.

ASSIGMENT QUESTIONS
1. Mention the characteristics of Embedded System.
2. Briefly explain the Operational and Non-Operational Quality Attributes of Embedded System.
3. With relevant diagram an example , explain the Embedded System
A) Application– Specific
B) Automotive – Domain-Specific
4. Discuss about the different types of serial interface buses.
5. Write short notes on the key players of the automotive embedded market.

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