Chapter 1: Introduction

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Outline

• Embedded systems overview

• What are they?
• Design challenge – optimizing design metrics
• Technologies
• Processor technologies
• IC technologies
• Design technologies

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Embedded systems overview

• Computing systems are everywhere

• Most of us think of “desktop” computers
• PC’s
• Laptops
• Mainframes
• Servers
• But there’s another type of computing system
• Far more common...

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 Embedded systems overview
• Embedded computing systems
• Computing systems embedded within electronic Computers are in here...
devices
• Hard to define. Nearly any computing system other and here...
than a desktop computer
• Billions of units produced yearly, versus millions of and even here...
desktop units
• Perhaps 50 per household and per automobile

Lots more of these,

though they cost a lot
less each.

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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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Some common characteristics of embedded
systems
• Single-functioned
• Executes a single program, repeatedly
• Tightly-constrained
• Low cost, low power, small, fast, etc.
• 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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 An embedded system example -- a digital
camera
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

• Single-functioned -- always a digital camera

• Tightly-constrained -- Low cost, low power, small, fast
• Reactive and real-time -- only to a small extent

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Design challenge – optimizing design metrics

• Obvious design goal:

• Construct an implementation with desired functionality
• Key design challenge:
• Simultaneously optimize numerous design metrics
• Design metric
• A measurable feature of a system’s implementation
• Optimizing design metrics is a key challenge

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Design challenge – optimizing design metrics

• Common metrics
• Unit cost: the monetary cost of manufacturing each copy of the system,
excluding NRE cost
• NRE cost (Non-Recurring Engineering cost): The one-time monetary cost of
designing the system
• Size: the physical space required by the system
• Performance: the execution time or throughput of the system
• Power: the amount of power consumed by the system
• Flexibility: the ability to change the functionality of the system without
incurring heavy NRE cost

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Design challenge – optimizing design metrics

• Common metrics (continued)

• Time-to-prototype: the time needed to build a working version of the system
• Time-to-market: the time required to develop a system to the point that it
can be released and sold to customers
• Maintainability: the ability to modify the system after its initial release
• Correctness, safety, many more

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 Design metric competition -- improving one
may worsen others
Power • Expertise with both software
and hardware is needed to
optimize design metrics
Performance Size
• Not just a hardware or software
expert, as is common
• A designer must be comfortable
NRE cost with various technologies in
order to choose the best for a
Digital camera chip given application and constraints
CCD
CCD preprocessor Pixel coprocessor D2A
A2D
lens
JPEG codec Microcontroller Multiplier/Accum

DMA controller Display ctrl Hardware

Memory controller ISA bus interface UART LCD ctrl

Software

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Time-to-market: a demanding design metric
• Time required to develop a
product to the point it can
be sold to customers
• Market window
• Period during which the
Revenues ($)

product would have highest

sales
• Average time-to-market
constraint is about 8
Time (months)
months
• Delays can be costly

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 Losses due to delayed market entry

• Simplified revenue model

Peak revenue
• Product life = 2W, peak at W
Peak revenue from • Time of market entry defines a
Revenues ($)

delayed entry triangle, representing market

On-time
penetration
Market rise Market fall
• Triangle area equals revenue
Delayed
• Loss
• The difference between the on-
D W 2W time and delayed triangle areas
On-time Delayed Time
entry entry

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 Losses due to delayed market entry (cont.)
• Area = 1/2 * base * height
• On-time = 1/2 * 2W * W
Peak revenue
• Delayed = 1/2 * (W-D+W)*(W-D)
Peak revenue from
• Percentage revenue loss = (D(3W-
Revenues ($)

delayed entry
On-time
D)/2W2)*100%
Market rise Market fall
• Try some examples
Delayed

– Lifetime 2W=52 wks, delay D=4 wks

D W 2W
– (4*(3*26 –4)/2*26^2) = 22%
On-time Delayed Time – Lifetime 2W=52 wks, delay D=10 wks
entry entry – (10*(3*26 –10)/2*26^2) = 50%
– Delays are costly!

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• D(3W-D)/2W^2 * 100% • D=5 & W=10
• W=52/2=26 WEEKS • $25 MILLION
• D=10 WEEKS
• 10(3*26 -10)/ 2*26^2
• 50.29%

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 NRE and unit cost metrics

• Example
– NRE=$2000, unit=$100
– For 10 units
– total cost = $2000 + 10*$100 = $3000
– per-product cost = $2000/10 + $100 = $300

Amortizing NRE cost over the units results in an

additional $200 per unit

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 NRE and unit cost metrics
• Compare technologies by costs -- best depends on quantity
• Technology A: NRE=$2,000, unit=$100
• Technology B: NRE=$30,000, unit=$30
• Technology C: NRE=$100,000, unit=$2
$200,000 $200
A A
B B
$160,000 $160
C C
to ta l c o st (x1000)

p e r p ro d uc t c o st
$120,000 $120

$80,000 $80

$40,000 $40

$0 $0
0 800 1600 2400 0 800 1600 2400
Num b e r o f units (vo lu m e ) Num b e r o f units (vo lu m e )

• But, must also consider time-to-market

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The performance design metric

• Widely-used measure of system, widely-abused

• Clock frequency, instructions per second – not good measures
• Digital camera example – a user cares about how fast it processes images,
not clock speed or instructions per second
• Latency (response time)
• Time between task start and end
• e.g., Camera’s A and B process images in 0.25 seconds
• Throughput
• Tasks per second, e.g. Camera A processes 4 images per second
• Throughput can be more than latency seems to imply due to concurrency,
e.g. Camera B may process 8 images per second (by capturing a new image
while previous image is being stored).
• Speedup of B over S = B’s performance / A’s performance
• Throughput speedup = 8/4 = 2

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• Speed up of A over B=performance of A/Performance of B

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Three key embedded system technologies

• Technology
• A manner of accomplishing a task, especially using technical processes,
methods, or knowledge
• Three key technologies for embedded systems
• Processor technology
• IC technology
• Design technology

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 Processor technology
• The architecture of the computation engine used to implement
a system’s desired functionality
• Processor does not have to be programmable
• “Processor” not equal to general-purpose processor
Controller Datapath Controller Datapath Controller Datapath
Control index
Control Register Control logic Registers
logic
logic and file and State total
State register register State
Custom +
ALU register
General
IR PC ALU IR PC
Data Data
memory memory
Program Data Program memory
memory memory
Assembly code Assembly code
for: for:

total = 0 total = 0
for i =1 to … for i =1 to …
General-purpose (“software”) Application-specific Single-purpose (“hardware”)

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 Processor technology
• Processors vary in their customization for the problem at hand

total = 0
for i = 1 to N loop
total += M[i]
end loop
Desired
functionality

General-purpose Application-specific Single-purpose

processor processor processor

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 General-purpose processors
• Programmable device used in a variety of
Controller Datapath
applications
• Also known as “microprocessor” Control Register
logic and file
• Features State
register
• Program memory General
• General datapath with large register file and IR PC ALU
general ALU
• User benefits Program
memory
Data
memory
• Low time-to-market and NRE costs
Assembly code
• High flexibility for:

• “Pentium” the most well-known, but total = 0

for i =1 to …
there are hundreds of others

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 Single-purpose processors
• Digital circuit designed to execute exactly
Controller Datapath
one program Control index
• a.k.a. coprocessor, accelerator or peripheral logic
total
• Features State
+
• Contains only the components needed to execute register
a single program
• No program memory Data
memory
• Benefits
• Fast
• Low power
• Small size

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 Application-specific processors
• Programmable processor optimized for a Controller Datapath
particular class of applications having Control Registers
common characteristics logic and
State
• Compromise between general-purpose and register
Custom
single-purpose processors ALU
IR PC
• Features
Data
• Program memory memory
Program
• Optimized datapath memory
• Special functional units Assembly code

• Benefits for:

total = 0
• Some flexibility, good performance, size and for i =1 to …
power

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• Microcontroller
• Dsp

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