1.

Introduction to Embedded System

Design

© Lothar Thiele
ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Swiss Federal Computer Engineering

Institute of Technology 1-1 and Networks Laboratory
Contents of Lectures (Lothar Thiele)
1. Introduction to Embedded System Design

2. Software for Embedded Systems

3. Real-Time Scheduling

4. Design Space Exploration

5. Performance Analysis

The slides contain material from the “Embedded System Design”

Book and Lecture of Peter Marwedel and from the “Hard
Real-Time Computing Systems” Book of Giorgio Buttazzo.
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Topics
General Introduction to Embedded Systems
Hardware Platforms and Components
! System Specialization
! Application Specific Instruction Sets
• Micro Controller
• Digital Signal Processors and VLIW
! Programmable Hardware
! ASICs
! System-on-Chip

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Embedded Systems
Embedded systems (ES) = information processing
systems embedded into a larger product

Examples:

Main reason for buying is not information processing

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Embedded Systems

external process
human interface

sensors, actuators
embedded system

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Examples of Embedded Systems
Car as an integrated control-, communication and information
system.

gear box information

ABS

motor control

climate control
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Examples of Embedded Systems
Consumer electronics, for example MP3 Audio, digital camera, home
electronics, … .
user interface

processor

sensors

actuators
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Examples of Embedded Systems

Production systems

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Examples of Embedded Systems
Information systems, for example wireless communication (mobile
phone, Wireless LAN, …), end-user equipment, router, …

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Communicating Embedded Systems
Example: BTnodes (http://www.btnode.ethz.ch)
! complete platform including OS
! especially suited for pervasive computing applications

Sensor
Actuator

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BTnode Platform
Communication via generic platform
Bluetooth for ad-hoc
Data
Transceiver computing
Interfaces
complete
platform
including OS
especially suited
for pervasive
computing
applications

Microprocessor 2nd Radio

and Memory
Batteries
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Communicating Embedded Systems
! sensor networks (civil engineering, buildings, environmental
monitoring, traffic, emergency situations)
! smart products, wearable/ubiquitous computing
MICS

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Characteristics of Embedded Systems (1)
Must be dependable:
! Reliability: R(t) = probability of system working correctly
provided that is was working at t=0
! Maintainability: M(d) = probability of system working
correctly d time units after error occurred.
! Availability: probability of system working at time t
! Safety: no harm to be caused
! Security: confidential and authentic communication

Even perfectly designed systems can fail if the assumptions

about the workload and possible errors turn out to be wrong.
Making the system dependable must not be an after-thought, it
must be considered from the very beginning.
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Characteristics of Embedded Systems (2)
Must be efficient:
! Energy efficient
! Code-size efficient (especially for systems on a chip)
! Run-time efficient
! Weight efficient
! Cost efficient

Dedicated towards a certain application: Knowledge about

behavior at design time can be used to minimize resources
and to maximize robustness.
Dedicated user interface (no mouse, keyboard and screen).

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Characteristics of Embedded Systems (3)
Many ES must meet real-time constraints:
! A real-time system must react to stimuli from the controlled
object (or the operator) within the time interval dictated by the
environment.
! For real-time systems, right answers arriving too late (or even
too early) are wrong.

„A real-time constraint is called hard, if not meeting that

constraint could result in a catastrophe“ [Kopetz, 1997].

! All other time-constraints are called soft.

! A guaranteed system response has to be explained without
statistical arguments.
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Characteristics of Embedded Systems (4)
Frequently connected to physical environment through
sensors and actuators,
Hybrid systems (analog + digital parts).
Typically, ES are reactive systems:

„A reactive system is one which is in continual interaction

with is environment and executes at a pace determined by
that environment“ [Bergé, 1995]

! Behavior depends on input and current state.

" automata model often appropriate,
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Comparison
Embedded Systems General Purpose Computing
! Few applications that are ! Broad class of applications.
known at design-time.
! Not programmable by end ! Programmable by end user.
user.
! Fixed run-time requirements ! Faster is better.
(additional computing power
not useful).
! Criteria: ! Criteria:
• cost • cost
• power consumption • average speed
• predictability
• …

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Topics
General Introduction to Embedded Systems
Hardware Platforms and Components
! System Specialization
! Application Specific Instruction Sets
• Micro Controller
• Digital Signal Processors and VLIW
! Programmable Hardware
! ASICs
! System-on-Chip

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Embedded System Hardware
Embedded system hardware is frequently used in a loop
(„hardware in a loop“):

this course

actuators

embedded system
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Typical Architecture
To Outside World
Peripheral Bus

DEBUG Port
Non-volatile memory Custom Devices
• EPROM, FLASH, DISK • ASIC
• Hybrid • FPGA
• PAL
Microprocessor
• 4, 8, 16, 32, 4 bit bus
• CISC, RISC, DSP
Standard Devices
• Integrated peripherals Volatile Memory
• Debug/Test Port • I/O Ports
• DRAM, SRAM • Peripheral Controllers
• Caches
• Hybrid
• Pipeline
• Multiprocessing Systems
Communication Devices
• Ethernet
• RS-232
• SCSI
• Centronics
System Clocks • Proprietary
• RTC circuitry
Software • System clocks
• Application Code • Integrated in uC
• Driver Code / BIOS • Imported/Exported Microprocessor Bus
• Real Time Operating System • Custom
• User Interface • PCI
• Communications Protocol Stacks • VME
• C, C++, Assembly Language, ADA • PC-102
• Legacy Code

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Topics
General Introduction to Embedded Systems
Hardware Platforms and Components
! System Specialization
! Application Specific Instruction Sets
• Micro Controller
• Digital Signal Processors and VLIW
! Programmable Hardware
! ASICs
! System-on-Chip

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 Implementation Alternatives

General-purpose processors

Application-specific instruction set processors

(ASIPs)
• Microcontroller
Performance • DSPs (digital signal processors)
Power Efficiency Flexibility

Programmable hardware
• FPGA (field-programmable gate arrays)

Application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs)

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General-purpose Processors
High performance
! Highly optimized circuits and technology
! Use of parallelism
• superscalar: dynamic scheduling of instructions
• super-pipelining: instruction pipelining, branch prediction,
speculation
! complex memory hierarchy
Not suited for real-time applications
! Execution times are highly unpredictable because of
intensive resource sharing and dynamic decisions
Properties
! Good average performance for large application mix
! High power consumption
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Pentium P4

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System Specialization
The main difference between general purpose highest
volume microprocessors and embedded systems is
specialization.
Specialization should respect flexibility
! application domain specific systems shall cover a class of
applications
! some flexibility is required to account for late changes,
debugging
System analysis required
! identification of application properties which can be used for
specialization
! quantification of individual specialization effects

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Example: Code-size Efficiency
CISC machines: RISC machines designed for run-time-,
not for code-size-efficiency.
Compression techniques: key idea

(de)compressor

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Example: Multimedia-Instructions
Multimedia instructions exploit that many registers, adders etc are
quite wide (32/64 bit), whereas most multimedia data types are
narrow
(e.g. 8 bit per color, 16 bit per audio sample per channel)
" 2-8 values can be stored per register and added. E.g.:

+
4 additions per instruction;
carry disabled at word
boundaries.
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Example: Heterogeneous registers
Example (ADSP 210x):
P
D

AX AY MX MY
Address- AF MF

registers
A0, A1, A2 ..
+,-,..
*
Address
AR
+,-
generation
unit (AGU) MR

Different functionality of registers An, AX, AY, AF,MX, MY, MF, MR

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Example: Multiple memory banks or memories
P
D

AX AY MX MY
Address- AF MF

registers
A0, A1, A2 ..
+,-,..
*
Address
AR
+,-
generation
unit (AGU) MR

Simplifies parallel fetches

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Example: Address generation units

Example (ADSP 210x):

• Data memory can only be fetched
with address contained in A,
• but this can be done in parallel with
operation in main data path (takes
effectively 0 time).
• A := A ± 1 also takes 0 time,
• same for A := A ± M;

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Example: Modulo addressing
sliding window
Modulo addressing: x
Am++ ≡ Am:=(Am+1) mod n
(implements ring or circular
buffer in memory)
t
t1

.. ..
n most x[t1-1] x[t1-1]
x[t1] x[t1]
recent x[t1-n+1] x[t1+1]
values x[t1-n+2] x[t1-n+2]
.. ..

Memory, t=t1 Memory, t2=t1+1

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Topics
General Introduction to Embedded Systems
Hardware Platforms and Components
! System Specialization
! Application Specific Instruction Sets
• Micro Controller
• Digital Signal Processors and VLIW
! Programmable Hardware
! ASICs
! System-on-Chip

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Control Dominated Systems
Reactive systems with event driven behavior
Underlying semantics of system description (“input model
of computation”) typically (coupled) Finite State Machines

I/O
signals

output
signals

output
signals

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Microcontroller
control-dominant applications
! supports process scheduling
and synchronization
! preemption (interrupt),
context switch
! short latency times
low power consumption
peripheral units often
integrated
suited for real-time 8051 core
SIECO51 (Siemens)
applications

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Major System Components
Institute of Technology and Networks Laboratory
Topics
General Introduction to Embedded Systems
Hardware Platforms and Components
! System Specialization
! Application Specific Instruction Sets
• Micro Controller
• Digital Signal Processors and VLIW
! Programmable Hardware
! ASICs
! System-on-Chip

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Data Dominated Systems
Streaming oriented systems with mostly periodic
behavior
Underlying semantics of input description e.g. flow
graphs (“input model of computation”)

B f1 B f2 B f3 B

B: buffer
B f2

Application examples: signal processing, control

engineering

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Digital Signal Processor
optimized for data-flow applications
suited for simple control flow
parallel hardware units (VLIW)
specialized instruction set
high data throughput
zero-overhead loops
specialized memory

suited for real-time

applications

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Major System Components
Institute of Technology and Networks Laboratory
MAC (multiply & accumulate)
sum = 0.0;
for (i=0; i<N; i++)
sum = sum + a[i]*b[i];

zero-overhead loop
(repeat next instruction N times)
LDF 0, R0
LDF 0, R1
RPTS N
MAC - Instruktion MPYF3 *(AR0)++, *(AR1)++, R0
|| ADDF3 R0, R1, R1

TMS320C3x Assembler
(Texas Instruments)

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Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW)

Key
Keyidea:
idea:detection
detectionof
ofpossible
possibleparallelism
parallelismto
tobebedone
doneby
by
compiler,
compiler,not
notby
byhardware
hardwareat
atrun-time
run-time(inefficient).
(inefficient).
VLIW:
VLIW:parallel
paralleloperations
operations(instructions)
(instructions)encoded
encodedininone
onelong
long
word
word(instruction
(instructionpacket),
packet),each
eachinstruction
instructioncontrolling
controllingone
one
functional
functionalunit.
unit.E.g.:
E.g.:

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Example: Philips TriMedia TM1000
32 bits data
SDRAM
400 MB/sec

Main Memory
Interface
Huffman decoder
CCIR601/656 Slice-at-a-time
VLD
YUV 4:2:2 Video In MPEG-1 & 2
Coprocessor
38 MHz (19 Mpix/sec)

Stereo digital audio CCIR60/656

Audio In Video Out
I2S DC-100 kHz YUV 4:2:2
80 MHz (40 Mpix/sec)
2/4/6/8 ch. digital audio Audio Out Timers
I2S DC-100 kHz
Synchronous
I2C bus to I2C Interface Serial V.34 or ISDN
camera, etc. Interface Front End
32K Image Down & up scaling
VLIW I$ Coprocessor YUV → RGB
CPU 16K 50 Mpix/sec
D$
PCI Interface PCI (32 bits, 33 MHz)
©Rolf Ernst TM - 1000

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Topics
General Introduction to Embedded Systems
Hardware Platforms and Components
! System Specialization
! Application Specific Instruction Sets
• Micro Controller
• Digital Signal Processors and VLIW
! Programmable Hardware
! ASICs
! System-on-Chip

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FPGA – Basic Strucutre
Logic Units
I/O Units
Connections

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FPGA - Classification
Granularity of logic units:
! Gate, tables, memory, functional blocks (ALU, control, data
path, processor)

Communication network:
! Crossbar, hierarchical mesh, tree

Reconfiguration:
! fixed at production time, once at design time, dynamic during
run-time

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Floor-plan of VIRTEX II FPGAs

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Virtex
Logic Cell

[© and source: Xilinx Inc.: Virtex-II

Pro™ Platform FPGAs:
Functional Description, Sept.
2002, //www.xilinx.com]

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Virtex II Pro
Devices include
up to 4 PowerPC
processor cores

[© and source: Xilinx Inc.: Virtex-II Pro™ Platform

FPGAs: Functional Description, Sept. 2002,
//www.xilinx.com]
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Topics
General Introduction to Embedded Systems
Hardware Platforms and Components
! System Specialization
! Application Specific Instruction Sets
• Micro Controller
• Digital Signal Processors and VLIW
! Programmable Hardware
! ASICs
! System-on-Chip

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Application Specific Circuits (ASICS)

Custom-designed circuits necessary

! if ultimate speed or
! energy efficiency is the goal and
! large numbers can be sold.
Approach suffers from
! long design times,
! lack of flexibility
(changing standards) and
! high costs
(e.g. Mill. $ mask costs).

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Topics
General Introduction to Embedded Systems
Hardware Platforms and Components
! System Specialization
! Application Specific Instruction Sets
• Micro Controller
• Digital Signal Processors and VLIW
! Programmable Hardware
! ASICs
! System-on-Chip

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Configurable System-On-Chip

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System-on-a-Chip

[NTNU]

Tensilica synthesized and

Confgurable microprocessor
(Soft IP)

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