Embedded system

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An embedded system on a plug-in card with processor, memory, power supply, and external interfaces

An embedded system is a computer system with a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or
electrical system, often with real-time computingconstraints.[1][2] It is embedded as part of a complete
device often including hardware and mechanical parts. Embedded systems control many devices in
common use today.[3] Ninety-eight percent of all microprocessors are manufactured as components
of embedded systems.[4]
Examples of properties of typical embedded computers when compared with general-purpose
counterparts are low power consumption, small size, rugged operating ranges, and low per-unit cost.
This comes at the price of limited processing resources, which make them significantly more difficult
to program and to interact with. However, by building intelligence mechanisms on top of the
hardware, taking advantage of possible existing sensors and the existence of a network of
embedded units, one can both optimally manage available resources at the unit and network levels
as well as provide augmented functions, well beyond those available. [5] For example, intelligent
techniques can be designed to manage power consumption of embedded systems. [6]
Modern embedded systems are often based on microcontrollers (i.e. CPU's with integrated memory
or peripheral interfaces),[7] but ordinary microprocessors (using external chips for memory and
peripheral interface circuits) are also common, especially in more-complex systems. In either case,
the processor(s) used may be types ranging from general purpose to those specialized in certain
class of computations, or even custom designed for the application at hand. A common standard
class of dedicated processors is the digital signal processor (DSP).
Since the embedded system is dedicated to specific tasks, design engineers can optimize it to
reduce the size and cost of the product and increase the reliability and performance. Some
embedded systems are mass-produced, benefiting from economies of scale.
Embedded systems range from portable devices such as digital watches and MP3 players, to large
stationary installations like traffic lights, factory controllers, and largely complex systems like hybrid
vehicles, MRI, and avionics. Complexity varies from low, with a single microcontroller chip, to very
high with multiple units, peripherals and networks mounted inside a large chassis or enclosure.

Contents
[hide]

 1History

 2Applications

 3Characteristics

o 3.1User interface
 o 3.2Processors in embedded systems

 3.2.1Ready-made computer boards

 3.2.2ASIC and FPGA solutions

o 3.3Peripherals

o 3.4Tools

 4Debugging

o 4.1Tracing

o 4.2Reliability

o 4.3High vs. low volume

 5Embedded software architectures

o 5.1Simple control loop

o 5.2Interrupt-controlled system

o 5.3Cooperative multitasking

o 5.4Preemptive multitasking or multi-threading

o 5.5Microkernels and exokernels

o 5.6Monolithic kernels

o 5.7Additional software components

 6See also

 7Notes

 8References

 9Further reading

 10External links

History[edit]
One of the very first recognizably modern embedded systems was the Apollo Guidance Computer,
developed by Charles Stark Draper at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. At the project's inception,
the Apollo guidance computer was considered the riskiest item in the Apollo project as it employed
the then newly developed monolithic integrated circuits to reduce the size and weight. An early
mass-produced embedded system was the Autonetics D-17 guidance computer for the Minuteman
missile, released in 1961. When the Minuteman II went into production in 1966, the D-17 was
replaced with a new computer that was the first high-volume use of integrated circuits.
Since these early applications in the 1960s, embedded systems have come down in price and there
has been a dramatic rise in processing power and functionality. An early microprocessor for
example, the Intel 4004, was designed for calculators and other small systems but still required
external memory and support chips. In 1978 National Engineering Manufacturers Association
released a "standard" for programmable microcontrollers, including almost any computer-based
controllers, such as single board computers, numerical, and event-based controllers.
As the cost of microprocessors and microcontrollers fell it became feasible to replace expensive
knob-based analogcomponents such as potentiometers and variable capacitors with up/down
buttons or knobs read out by a microprocessor even in consumer products. By the early 1980s,
memory, input and output system components had been integrated into the same chip as the
processor forming a microcontroller. Microcontrollers find applications where a general-purpose
computer would be too costly.
A comparatively low-cost microcontroller may be programmed to fulfill the same role as a large
number of separate components. Although in this context an embedded system is usually more
complex than a traditional solution, most of the complexity is contained within the microcontroller
itself. Very few additional components may be needed and most of the design effort is in the
software. Software prototype and test can be quicker compared with the design and construction of
a new circuit not using an embedded processor.

Applications[edit]

Embedded Computer Sub-Assembly for Accupoll Electronic Voting Machine [8]

Embedded systems are commonly found in consumer, cooking, industrial, automotive, medical,
commercial and military applications.
Telecommunications systems employ numerous embedded systems from telephone switches for the
network to cell phones at the end user. Computer networking uses dedicated routers and network
bridges to route data.
Consumer electronics include MP3 players, mobile phones, videogame consoles, digital
cameras, GPS receivers, and printers. Household appliances, such as microwave ovens, washing
machines and dishwashers, include embedded systems to provide flexibility, efficiency and features.
Advanced HVAC systems use networked thermostats to more accurately and efficiently control
temperature that can change by time of day and season. Home automation uses wired- and
wireless-networking that can be used to control lights, climate, security, audio/visual, surveillance,
etc., all of which use embedded devices for sensing and controlling.
Transportation systems from flight to automobiles increasingly use embedded systems. New
airplanes contain advanced avionics such as inertial guidance systems and GPS receivers that also
have considerable safety requirements. Various electric motors — brushless DC motors, induction
motors and DC motors — use electric/electronic motor controllers. Automobiles, electric vehicles,
and hybrid vehicles increasingly use embedded systems to maximize efficiency and reduce pollution.
Other automotive safety systems include anti-lock braking system (ABS), Electronic Stability
Control (ESC/ESP), traction control (TCS) and automatic four-wheel drive.
Medical equipment uses embedded systems for vital signs monitoring, electronic stethoscopes for
amplifying sounds, and various medical imaging (PET, SPECT, CT, and MRI) for non-invasive
internal inspections. Embedded systems within medical equipment are often powered by industrial
computers.[9]
Embedded systems are used in transportation, fire safety, safety and security, medical applications
and life critical systems, as these systems can be isolated from hacking and thus, be more reliable,
unless connected to wired or wireless networks via on-chip 3G cellular or other methods for IoT
monitoring and control purposes.[citation needed] For fire safety, the systems can be designed to have
greater ability to handle higher temperatures and continue to operate. In dealing with security, the
embedded systems can be self-sufficient and be able to deal with cut electrical and communication
systems.
A new class of miniature wireless devices called motes are networked wireless sensors. Wireless
sensor networking, WSN, makes use of miniaturization made possible by advanced IC design to
couple full wireless subsystems to sophisticated sensors, enabling people and companies to
measure a myriad of things in the physical world and act on this information through IT monitoring
and control systems. These motes are completely self-contained, and will typically run off a battery
source for years before the batteries need to be changed or charged.
Embedded Wi-Fi modules provide a simple means of wirelessly enabling any device that
communicates via a serial port.

Characteristics[edit]
Embedded systems are designed to do some specific task, rather than be a general-purpose
computer for multiple tasks. Some also have real-time performance constraints that must be met, for
reasons such as safety and usability; others may have low or no performance requirements, allowing
the system hardware to be simplified to reduce costs.
Embedded systems are not always standalone devices. Many embedded systems consist of small
parts within a larger device that serves a more general purpose. For example, the Gibson Robot
Guitar features an embedded system for tuning the strings, but the overall purpose of the Robot
Guitar is, of course, to play music.[10] Similarly, an embedded system in an automobile provides a
specific function as a subsystem of the car itself.
e-con Systems eSOM270 & eSOM300 Computer on Modules

The program instructions written for embedded systems are referred to as firmware, and are stored
in read-only memory or flash memory chips. They run with limited computer hardware resources:
little memory, small or non-existent keyboard or screen.
User interface[edit]

Embedded system text user interface using MicroVGA[nb 1]

Embedded systems range from no user interface at all, in systems dedicated only to one task, to
complex graphical user interfaces that resemble modern computer desktop operating systems.
Simple embedded devices use buttons, LEDs, graphic or character LCDs (HD44780 LCD for
example) with a simple menu system.
More sophisticated devices that use a graphical screen with touch sensing or screen-edge buttons
provide flexibility while minimizing space used: the meaning of the buttons can change with the
screen, and selection involves the natural behavior of pointing at what is desired. Handheld
systems often have a screen with a "joystick button" for a pointing device.
Some systems provide user interface remotely with the help of a serial (e.g. RS-232, USB, I²C, etc.)
or network (e.g. Ethernet) connection. This approach gives several advantages: extends the
capabilities of embedded system, avoids the cost of a display, simplifies BSP and allows one to build
a rich user interface on the PC. A good example of this is the combination of an embedded web
server running on an embedded device (such as an IP camera) or a network router. The user
interface is displayed in a web browser on a PC connected to the device, therefore needing no
software to be installed.
Processors in embedded systems[edit]
Embedded processors can be broken into two broad categories. Ordinary microprocessors (μP) use
separate integrated circuits for memory and peripherals. Microcontrollers (μC) have on-chip
peripherals, thus reducing power consumption, size and cost. In contrast to the personal computer
market, many different basic CPU architectures are used since software is custom-developed for an
application and is not a commodity product installed by the end user. Both Von Neumann as well as
various degrees of Harvard architectures are used. RISC as well as non-RISC processors are found.
Word lengths vary from 4-bit to 64-bits and beyond, although the most typical remain 8/16-bit. Most
architectures come in a large number of different variants and shapes, many of which are also
manufactured by several different companies.
Numerous microcontrollers have been developed for embedded systems use. General-purpose
microprocessors are also used in embedded systems, but generally, require more support circuitry
than microcontrollers.
Ready-made computer boards[edit]
PC/104 and PC/104+ are examples of standards for ready-made computer boards intended for
small, low-volume embedded and ruggedized systems, mostly x86-based. These are often
physically small compared to a standard PC, although still quite large compared to most simple
(8/16-bit) embedded systems. They often use DOS, Linux, NetBSD, or an embedded real-time
operating system such as MicroC/OS-II, QNX or VxWorks. Sometimes these boards use non-x86
processors.
In certain applications, where small size or power efficiency are not primary concerns, the
components used may be compatible with those used in general purpose x86 personal computers.
Boards such as the VIA EPIA range help to bridge the gap by being PC-compatible but highly
integrated, physically smaller or have other attributes making them attractive to embedded
engineers. The advantage of this approach is that low-cost commodity components may be used
along with the same software development tools used for general software development. Systems
built in this way are still regarded as embedded since they are integrated into larger devices and
fulfill a single role. Examples of devices that may adopt this approach are ATMs and arcade
machines, which contain code specific to the application.
However, most ready-made embedded systems boards are not PC-centered and do not use the ISA
or PCI buses. When a system-on-a-chip processor is involved, there may be little benefit to having a
standarized bus connecting discrete components, and the environment for both hardware and
software tools may be very different.
One common design style uses a small system module, perhaps the size of a business card, holding
high density BGA chips such as an ARM-based system-on-a-chip processor and peripherals,
external flash memory for storage, and DRAM for runtime memory. The module vendor will usually
provide boot software and make sure there is a selection of operating systems, usually
including Linux and some real time choices. These modules can be manufactured in high volume, by
organizations familiar with their specialized testing issues, and combined with much lower volume
custom mainboards with application-specific external peripherals.
Implementation of embedded systems has advanced so that they can easily be implemented with
already-made boards that are based on worldwide accepted platforms. These platforms include, but
are not limited to, Arduino and Raspberry Pi.
ASIC and FPGA solutions[edit]
A common array for very-high-volume embedded systems is the system on a chip (SoC) that
contains a complete system consisting of multiple processors, multipliers, caches and interfaces on
a single chip. SoCs can be implemented as an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) or using
a field-programmable gate array (FPGA).
Peripherals[edit]
A close-up of the SMSC LAN91C110 (SMSC 91x) chip, an embedded Ethernet chip

Embedded systems talk with the outside world via peripherals, such as:

 Serial Communication Interfaces (SCI): RS-232, RS-422, RS-485, etc.

 Synchronous Serial Communication Interface: I2C, SPI, SSC and ESSI (Enhanced
Synchronous Serial Interface)

 Universal Serial Bus (USB)

 Multi Media Cards (SD cards, Compact Flash, etc.)

 Networks: Ethernet, LonWorks, etc.

 Fieldbuses: CAN-Bus, LIN-Bus, PROFIBUS, etc.

 Timers: PLL(s), Capture/Compare and Time Processing Units

 Discrete IO: aka General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO)

 Analog to Digital/Digital to Analog (ADC/DAC)

 Debugging: JTAG, ISP, ICSP, BDM Port, BITP, and DB9 ports.
Tools[edit]
As with other software, embedded system designers use compilers, assemblers, and debuggers to
develop embedded system software. However, they may also use some more specific tools:

 In circuit debuggers or emulators (see next section).

 Utilities to add a checksum or CRC to a program, so the embedded system can check if the
program is valid.

 For systems using digital signal processing, developers may use a math workbench to
simulate the mathematics.

 System level modeling and simulation tools help designers to construct simulation models of
a system with hardware components such as processors, memories, DMA, interfaces, buses
and software behavior flow as a state diagram or flow diagram using configurable library blocks.
 Simulation is conducted to select right components by performing power vs. performance trade-
off, reliability analysis and bottleneck analysis. Typical reports that helps designer to make
architecture decisions includes application latency, device throughput, device utilization, power
consumption of the full system as well as device-level power consumption.

 A model-based development tool creates and simulate graphical data flow and UML state
chart diagrams of components like digital filters, motor controllers, communication protocol
decoding and multi-rate tasks.

 Custom compilers and linkers may be used to optimize specialized hardware.

 An embedded system may have its own special language or design tool, or add
enhancements to an existing language such as Forth or Basic.

 Another alternative is to add a real-time operating system or embedded operating system

 Modeling and code generating tools often based on state machines

Software tools can come from several sources:

 Software companies that specialize in the embedded market

 Ported from the GNU software development tools

 Sometimes, development tools for a personal computer can be used if the embedded
processor is a close relative to a common PC processor
As the complexity of embedded systems grows, higher level tools and operating systems are
migrating into machinery where it makes sense. For example, cellphones, personal digital
assistants and other consumer computers often need significant software that is purchased or
provided by a person other than the manufacturer of the electronics. In these systems, an open
programming environment such as Linux, NetBSD, OSGi or Embedded Java is required so that the
third-party software provider can sell to a large market.
Embedded systems are commonly found in consumer, cooking, industrial, automotive, medical
applications. Some examples of embedded systems are MP3 players, mobile phones, videogame
consoles, digital cameras, DVD players, and GPS. Household appliances, such as microwave
ovens, washing machines and dishwashers, include embedded systems to provide flexibility and
efficiency.

Debugging[edit]
Embedded debugging may be performed at different levels, depending on the facilities available.
The different metrics that characterize the different forms of embedded debugging are: does it slow
down the main application, how close is the debugged system or application to the actual system or
application, how expressive are the triggers that I can set for debugging (e.g., I want to inspect the
memory when a particular program counter value is reached), and what can I inspect in the
debugging process (such as, only memory, or memory and registers, etc.).
From simplest to most sophisticated they can be roughly grouped into the following areas:

 Interactive resident debugging, using the simple shell provided by the embedded operating
system (e.g. Forth and Basic)
 External debugging using logging or serial port output to trace operation using either a
monitor in flash or using a debug server like the Remedy Debugger that even works for
heterogeneous multicore systems.

 An in-circuit debugger (ICD), a hardware device that connects to the microprocessor via
a JTAG or Nexusinterface.[11] This allows the operation of the microprocessor to be controlled
externally, but is typically restricted to specific debugging capabilities in the processor.

 An in-circuit emulator (ICE) replaces the microprocessor with a simulated equivalent,

providing full control over all aspects of the microprocessor.

 A complete emulator provides a simulation of all aspects of the hardware, allowing all of it to
be controlled and modified, and allowing debugging on a normal PC. The downsides are
expense and slow operation, in some cases up to 100 times slower than the final system.

 For SoC designs, the typical approach is to verify and debug the design on an FPGA
prototype board. Tools such as Certus[12] are used to insert probes in the FPGA RTL that make
signals available for observation. This is used to debug hardware, firmware and software
interactions across multiple FPGA with capabilities similar to a logic analyzer.

 Software-only debuggers have the benefit that they do not need any hardware modification
but have to carefully control what they record in order to conserve time and storage space. [13]
Unless restricted to external debugging, the programmer can typically load and run software through
the tools, view the code running in the processor, and start or stop its operation. The view of the
code may be as HLL source-code, assembly code or mixture of both.
Because an embedded system is often composed of a wide variety of elements, the debugging
strategy may vary. For instance, debugging a software- (and microprocessor-) centric embedded
system is different from debugging an embedded system where most of the processing is performed
by peripherals (DSP, FPGA, and co-processor). An increasing number of embedded systems today
use more than one single processor core. A common problem with multi-core development is the
proper synchronization of software execution. In this case, the embedded system design may wish
to check the data traffic on the busses between the processor cores, which requires very low-level
debugging, at signal/bus level, with a logic analyzer, for instance.
Tracing[edit]
Real-time operating systems (RTOS) often supports tracing of operating system events. A graphical
view is presented by a host PC tool, based on a recording of the system behavior. The trace
recording can be performed in software, by the RTOS, or by special tracing hardware. RTOS tracing
allows developers to understand timing and performance issues of the software system and gives a
good understanding of the high-level system behaviors. Commercial tools like RTXC Quadros or IAR
Systems exists.
Reliability[edit]
Embedded systems often reside in machines that are expected to run continuously for years without
errors, and in some cases recover by themselves if an error occurs. Therefore, the software is
usually developed and tested more carefully than that for personal computers, and unreliable
mechanical moving parts such as disk drives, switches or buttons are avoided.
Specific reliability issues may include:
 The system cannot safely be shut down for repair, or it is too inaccessible to repair.
Examples include space systems, undersea cables, navigational beacons, bore-hole systems,
and automobiles.

 The system must be kept running for safety reasons. "Limp modes" are less tolerable. Often
backups are selected by an operator. Examples include aircraft navigation, reactor control
systems, safety-critical chemical factory controls, train signals.

 The system will lose large amounts of money when shut down: Telephone switches, factory
controls, bridge and elevator controls, funds transfer and market making, automated sales and
service.
A variety of techniques are used, sometimes in combination, to recover from errors—both software
bugs such as memory leaks, and also soft errors in the hardware:

 watchdog timer that resets the computer unless the software periodically notifies the
watchdog subsystems with redundant spares that can be switched over to software "limp
modes" that provide partial function

 Designing with a Trusted Computing Base (TCB) architecture[14] ensures a highly secure &
reliable system environment

 A hypervisor designed for embedded systems, is able to provide secure encapsulation for
any subsystem component, so that a compromised software component cannot interfere with
other subsystems, or privileged-level system software [15]. This encapsulation keeps faults from
propagating from one subsystem to another, improving reliability. This may also allow a
subsystem to be automatically shut down and restarted on fault detection.

 Immunity Aware Programming

High vs. low volume[edit]
For high volume systems such as portable music players or mobile phones, minimizing cost is
usually the primary design consideration. Engineers typically select hardware that is just “good
enough” to implement the necessary functions.
For low-volume or prototype embedded systems, general purpose computers may be adapted by
limiting the programs or by replacing the operating system with a real-time operating system.

Embedded software architectures[edit]

Main article: Embedded software
There are several different types of software architecture in common use.
Simple control loop[edit]
In this design, the software simply has a loop. The loop calls subroutines, each of which manages a
part of the hardware or software. Hence it is called a simple control loop or control loop.
Interrupt-controlled system[edit]
Some embedded systems are predominantly controlled by interrupts. This means that tasks
performed by the system are triggered by different kinds of events; an interrupt could be generated,
for example, by a timer in a predefined frequency, or by a serial port controller receiving a byte.
These kinds of systems are used if event handlers need low latency, and the event handlers are
short and simple. Usually, these kinds of systems run a simple task in a main loop also, but this task
is not very sensitive to unexpected delays.
Sometimes the interrupt handler will add longer tasks to a queue structure. Later, after the interrupt
handler has finished, these tasks are executed by the main loop. This method brings the system
close to a multitasking kernel with discrete processes.
Cooperative multitasking[edit]
A nonpreemptive multitasking system is very similar to the simple control loop scheme, except that
the loop is hidden in an API. The programmer defines a series of tasks, and each task gets its own
environment to “run” in. When a task is idle, it calls an idle routine, usually called “pause”, “wait”,
“yield”, “nop” (stands for no operation), etc.
The advantages and disadvantages are similar to that of the control loop, except that adding new
software is easier, by simply writing a new task, or adding to the queue.
Preemptive multitasking or multi-threading[edit]
In this type of system, a low-level piece of code switches between tasks or threads based on a timer
(connected to an interrupt). This is the level at which the system is generally considered to have an
"operating system" kernel. Depending on how much functionality is required, it introduces more or
less of the complexities of managing multiple tasks running conceptually in parallel.
As any code can potentially damage the data of another task (except in larger systems using
an MMU) programs must be carefully designed and tested, and access to shared data must be
controlled by some synchronization strategy, such as message queues, semaphores or a non-
blocking synchronization scheme.
Because of these complexities, it is common for organizations to use a real-time operating
system (RTOS), allowing the application programmers to concentrate on device functionality rather
than operating system services, at least for large systems; smaller systems often cannot afford the
overhead associated with a generic real-time system, due to limitations regarding memory size,
performance, or battery life. The choice that an RTOS is required brings in its own issues, however,
as the selection must be done prior to starting to the application development process. This timing
forces developers to choose the embedded operating system for their device based upon current
requirements and so restricts future options to a large extent. [16] The restriction of future options
becomes more of an issue as product life decreases. Additionally the level of complexity is
continuously growing as devices are required to manage variables such as serial, USB, TCP/IP,
Bluetooth, Wireless LAN, trunk radio, multiple channels, data and voice, enhanced graphics, multiple
states, multiple threads, numerous wait states and so on. These trends are leading to the uptake
of embedded middleware in addition to a real-time operating system.
Microkernels and exokernels[edit]
A microkernel is a logical step up from a real-time OS. The usual arrangement is that the operating
system kernel allocates memory and switches the CPU to different threads of execution. User mode
processes implement major functions such as file systems, network interfaces, etc.
In general, microkernels succeed when the task switching and intertask communication is fast and
fail when they are slow.
Exokernels communicate efficiently by normal subroutine calls. The hardware and all the software in
the system are available to and extensible by application programmers.
Monolithic kernels[edit]
In this case, a relatively large kernel with sophisticated capabilities is adapted to suit an embedded
environment. This gives programmers an environment similar to a desktop operating system
like Linux or Microsoft Windows, and is therefore very productive for development; on the downside,
it requires considerably more hardware resources, is often more expensive, and, because of the
complexity of these kernels, can be less predictable and reliable.
Common examples of embedded monolithic kernels are embedded Linux and Windows CE.
Despite the increased cost in hardware, this type of embedded system is increasing in popularity,
especially on the more powerful embedded devices such as wireless routers and GPS navigation
systems. Here are some of the reasons:

 Ports to common embedded chip sets are available.

 They permit re-use of publicly available code for device drivers, web servers, firewalls, and
other code.

 Development systems can start out with broad feature-sets, and then the distribution can be
configured to exclude unneeded functionality, and save the expense of the memory that it would
consume.

 Many engineers believe that running application code in user mode is more reliable and
easier to debug, thus making the development process easier and the code more portable. [citation
needed]

 Features requiring faster response than can be guaranteed can often be placed in hardware.
Additional software components[edit]
In addition to the core operating system, many embedded systems have additional upper-layer
software components. These components consist of networking protocol stacks
like CAN, TCP/IP, FTP, HTTP, and HTTPS, and also included storage capabilities like FAT and flash
memory management systems. If the embedded device has audio and video capabilities, then the
appropriate drivers and codecs will be present in the system. In the case of the monolithic kernels,
many of these software layers are included. In the RTOS category, the availability of the additional
software components depends upon the commercial offering.