CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO EMBEDDED SYSTEM

Learning Objective: At the end of the lesson, the students are expected
to;
✓ Define embedded system and categorize its structure.
✓ Describe the characteristics of embedded system
✓ Categorize Embedded System according to their function and
performance.

Introduction

We can broadly define an embedded system as a microcontroller-based, software-

driven, reliable, real-time control system, designed to perform a specific task. It can be
thought of as a computer hardware system having software embedded in it. An
embedded system can be either an independent system or a part of a large system. In
this tutorial, we will explain all the steps necessary to design an embedded system and
use it.

System

A system is an arrangement in which all its unit assemble work together according to a
set of rules. It can also be defined as a way of working, organizing or doing one or many
tasks according to a fixed plan. For example, a watch is a time displaying system. Its
components follow a set of rules to show time. If one of its parts fails, the watch will stop
working. So, we can say, in a system, all its subcomponents depend on each other.

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Embedded System

As its name suggests, Embedded means something that is attached to another thing.
An embedded system can be thought of as a computer hardware system having software
embedded in it. An embedded system can be an independent system or it can be a part
of a large system. An embedded system is a microcontroller or microprocessor-based
system which is designed to perform a specific task. For example, a fire alarm is an
embedded system; it will sense only smoke.

An embedded system has three components −

• It has hardware.

• It has application software.

• It has Real Time Operating system (RTOS) that supervises the application
software and provide mechanism to let the processor run a process as per
scheduling by following a plan to control the latencies. RTOS defines the way the
system works. It sets the rules during the execution of application program. A
small-scale embedded system may not have RTOS.

So, we can define an embedded system as a Microcontroller based, software driven,

reliable, real-time control system.

Characteristics of an Embedded System

• Single-functioned − An embedded system usually performs a specialized

operation and does the same repeatedly. For example: A pager always functions
as a pager.

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• Tightly constrained − All computing systems have constraints on design metrics,
but those on an embedded system can be especially tight. Design metrics is a
measure of an implementation's features such as its cost, size, power, and
performance. It must be of a size to fit on a single chip, must perform fast enough
to process data in real time and consume minimum power to extend battery life.

• Reactive and Real time − Many embedded systems must continually react to
changes in the system's environment and must compute certain results in real
time without any delay. Consider an example of a car cruise controller; it
continually monitors and reacts to speed and brake sensors. It must compute
acceleration or de-accelerations repeatedly within a limited time; a delayed
computation can result in failure to control of the car.

• Microprocessors based − It must be microprocessor or microcontroller based.

• Memory − It must have a memory, as its software usually embeds in ROM. It does
not need any secondary memories in the computer.

• Connected − It must have connected peripherals to connect input and output

devices.

• HW-SW systems − Software is used for more features and flexibility. Hardware
is used for performance and security.

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Advantages

• Easily Customizable

• Low power consumption

• Low cost

• Enhanced performance

Disadvantages

• High development effort

• Larger time to market

Basic Structure of an Embedded System

The following illustration shows the basic structure of an embedded system −

• Sensor − It measures the physical quantity and converts it to an electrical signal

which can be read by an observer or by any electronic instrument like an A2D
converter. A sensor stores the measured quantity to the memory.

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 • A-D Converter − An analog-to-digital converter converts the analog signal sent
by the sensor into a digital signal.

• Processor & ASICs − Processors process the data to measure the output and
store it to the memory.

• D-A Converter − A digital-to-analog converter converts the digital data fed by the
processor to analog data

• Actuator − An actuator compares the output given by the D-A Converter to the
actual (expected) output stored in it and stores the approved output.

Categories of Embedded systems

Embedded systems can be classified into the following 4 categories based on their
functional and performance requirements.

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Stand-alone Embedded systems:
A stand-alone embedded system works by itself. It is a self-contained device which
does not require any host system like a computer. It takes either digital or analog inputs
from its input ports, calibrates, converts, and processes the data, and outputs the
resulting data to its attached output device, which either displays data, or controls and
drives the attached devices.
EX: Temperature measurement systems, Video game consoles, MP3 players, digital
cameras, and microwave ovens are the examples for this category.

Real-time embedded systems:

An embedded system which gives the required output in a specified time or which
strictly follows the time deadlines for completion of a task is known as a Real time
system i.e., a Real Time system, in addition to functional correctness, also satisfies the
time constraints. There are two types of Real time systems. (i) Soft real time system and
(ii) Hard real time system.

➢ Soft Real-Time system: A Real time system in which, the violation of time
constraints will cause only the degraded quality, but the system can continue to
operate is known as a Soft real time system. In soft real-time systems, the design
focus is to offer a guaranteed bandwidth to each real-time task and to distribute
the resources to the tasks.

Ex: A Microwave Oven, washing machine, TV remote etc.

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 ➢ Hard Real-Time system: A Real time system in which, the violation of time
constraints will cause critical failure and loss of life or property damage or
catastrophe is known as a Hard Real time system.

These systems usually interact directly with physical hardware instead of through a
human being. The hardware and software of hard real-time systems must allow a
worst-case execution

(WCET) analysis that guarantees the execution be completed within a strict

deadline. The chip selection and RTOS selection become important factors for hard
real-time system design.

Ex: Deadline in a missile control embedded system, Delayed alarm during a Gas leakage,

car airbag control system, A delayed response in pacemakers, Failure in RADAR functioning
etc.

Networked embedded systems:

The networked embedded systems are related to a network with network interfaces to
access the resources. The connected network can be a Local Area Network (LAN) or a
Wide Area Network (WAN), or the Internet. The connection can be either wired or
wireless. The networked embedded system is the fastest growing area in embedded
systems applications. The embedded web server is such a system where all embedded
devices are connected to a web server and can be accessed and controlled by any web
browser.

Ex: A home security system is an example of a LAN networked embedded system

where all sensors (e.g., motion detectors, light sensors, or smoke sensors) are wired
and running on the TCP/IP protocol.

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Mobile Embedded systems:
The portable embedded devices like mobile and cellular phones, digital cameras, MP3
players, PDA (Personal Digital Assistants) are the example for mobile embedded
systems. The basic limitation of these devices is the limitation of memory and other
resources. Based on the performance of the Microcontroller they are also classified into
(i) Small scaled embedded system (ii) Medium scaled embedded system and (iii) Large
scaled embedded system.

Classifications of Embedded systems

1. Small Scale Embedded Systems: These systems are designed with a single 8- or
16- bit microcontroller; they have little hardware and software complexities and involve
board- level design. They may even be battery operated. When developing embedded
software for these, an editor, assembler and cross assembler, specific to the
microcontroller or processor used, are the main programming tools. Usually, C used for
developing these systems. C program compilation is done into the assembly, and
executable codes are then appropriately located in the system memory. The software
has to fit within the memory available and keep in view the need to limit power
dissipation when system is running continuously.

2. Medium Scale Embedded Systems: These systems are usually designed with a
single or few 16- or 32-bit microcontrollers or DSPs or Reduced Instruction Set
Computers (RISCs). These have both hardware and software complexities. For
complex software design, there are the following programming tools: RTOS, Source
code engineering tool, Simulator, Debugger and Integrated Development Environment
(IDE). Software tools also provide the solutions to the hardware complexities. An
assembler is of little use as a programming tool. These systems may also employ the

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readily available ASSPs and IPs (explained later) for the various functions for example,
for the bus interfacing, encrypting, deciphering, discrete cosine transformation and
inverse transformation, TCP/IP protocol stacking and network connecting functions.

3. Sophisticated Embedded Systems: Sophisticated embedded systems have

enormous hardware and software complexities and may need scalable processors or
configurable processors and programmable logic arrays. They are used for cutting edge
applications that need hardware and software co-design and integration in the final
system; however, they are constrained by the processing speeds available in their
hardware units. Certain software functions such as encryption and deciphering
algorithms, discrete cosine transformation and inverse transformation algorithms,
TCP/IP protocol stacking and network driver functions are implemented in the hardware
to obtain additional speeds by saving time. Some of the functions of the hardware
resources in the system are also implemented by the software. Development tools for
these systems may not be readily available at a reasonable cost or may not be available
at all. In some cases, a compiler or retarget able compiler might have to be developed
for these.

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