LECTURE 4: INTRODUCTION

TO EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Dr. ASSAF M. H.

EE326 - EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

USP AUGUST 2018

 TOPICS

• Overview

• Characteristics of Embedded Systems

• Soft-core Processors

• Challenges in Embedded Systems Design

• Design Level of Abstraction

• Typical CAD Design Flow

• Design Metrics
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OVERVIEW

 What is an embedded system?

 Any computing system (device) other than a
general-purpose computer

 Sophisticated functionality
 Real-time operation
 Low manufacturing cost
 Low power
 Reliable and secure
 Designed to tight deadlines by small teams

http://www.digilentinc.com/
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A SIMPLIFIED VIEW

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 EMBEDDED SYSTEMS OVERVIEW

 Computing systems are everywhere

 Most of us think of “desktop” computers

PCs
Laptops
Mainframes
Servers

But there’s another type of computing system

Far more common...

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 EMBEDDED SYSTEMS OVERVIEW

• Embedded computing systems Computers are in here...

and here...

• Computing systems embedded within and even here...

electronic devices
• Hard to define. Nearly any computing system

other than a desktop computer

• Billions of units produced yearly, versus

millions of desktop units

• Perhaps 50 per household and per Lots more of these,

automobile
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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 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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 FUNCTIONAL COMPLEXITY

• Often have to run sophisticated algorithms

- Cell phone, laser printer
• Often provide sophisticated user interfaces

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 REAL-TIME OPERATION

• Must finish operations by deadlines

- Hard real time: missing deadline causes failure
- Soft real time: missing deadline results in degraded
performance
• Many systems must handle operations at
widely varying rates (multi-rate systems)

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 NON-FUNCTIONAL
REQUIREMENTS
• Many embedded systems are mass-market
items that must have low manufacturing costs
- Limited memory
- microprocessor power
- etc.
• Power consumption is critical in battery-
powered devices

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 DESIGN TEAMS
• Designed by a small team of designers
• Must meet tight deadlines
- 6 month market window is common

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 PROCESSOR VARIETIES

• Microcontroller includes:
- I/O devices
- on-board memory
• Digital signal processor (DSP)
- microprocessor optimized for digital signal
processing
• Typical embedded word sizes:
- 8-bit
- 16-bit
-32-bit.

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SOFT-CORE PROCESSORS
• Specified through FPGA programming just like
programmable logic
- Shipped as hardware description files (VHDL, VERILOG,
JHDL) which can be mapped on to FPGA board (NIOS II,
MICROBLAZE)
- Are bundled with software development tools (compiler,
simulator, etc.)
• Offer flexibility as microprocessor parameters can be
tuned to the application with tight on-chip
interconnection with additional circuitry
• Designs can be marketed quickly
- You can test and validate many designs quickly without
making any specific board
. no soldering/wiring 15
 CHALLENGES IN EMBEDDED
SYSTEM DESIGN
• How much hardware do we need?
- How fast is the CPU?
- How big is the Memory?
• How do we meet our deadlines?
- Do we use faster hardware?
- Do we use cleverer software?
• How do we minimize power?
- Do we turn off unnecessary logic?
- Do we reduce memory accesses?

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 Design methodologies
A procedure for designing a system
Understanding your methodology helps
you ensure you didn’t skip anything
Compilers, software engineering tools,
computer-aided design (CAD) tools, etc.,
can be used to:
 help automate the design methodology
steps
 keep track of the design methodology itself
Xilinx Design tools: ISE Design Suite, …
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 Design goals
Performance
 Overall speed
 Deadlines
Functionality and user interface
Manufacturing cost
Power consumption
Other requirements (physical size, etc.)

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 Levels of abstraction
requirements

specification

architecture

component
design
system
integration

testing
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 Top-down vs. bottom-up
Top-down design:
 start from most abstract description
 work to most detailed
Bottom-up design:
 work from small components to big system
Real design uses both techniques

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 Typical CAD design flow:

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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
 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
Performance Size
is needed to optimize
design metrics
 Not just a hardware or
NRE cost software expert, as is common
 A designer must be
comfortable with various
technologies in order to choose
Digital camera chip
CCD

the best for a given application

CCD preprocessor Pixel coprocessor D2A
A2D
lens
JPEG codec Microcontroller Multiplier/Accum
and constraints
DMA controller Display ctrl
Hardware
Software
Memory controller ISA bus interface UART LCD ctrl

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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 / A’s performance

 Throughput speedup = 8/4 = 2
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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
Custom State
+
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 Controller Datapath
variety of applications Control Register
 Also known as “microprocessor” logic and file
State register
Features
General
 Program memory IR PC ALU
 General datapath with large register file and
general ALU Program Data
User benefits memory memory

 Low time-to-market and NRE costs Assembly code

for:
 High flexibility
total = 0

“Pentium” the most well-known, for i =1 to …

but there are hundreds of others

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 Single-purpose processors
Digital circuit designed to execute Controller Datapath
exactly one program Control index
logic
 coprocessor, accelerator or peripheral total
Features State
register +
 Contains only the components needed to
execute a single program Data
 No program memory memory

Benefits
 Fast
 Low power
 Small size

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 Application-specific processors
Programmable processor Controller Datapath

optimized for a particular class of Control

logic and
Registers

applications having common State register

characteristics Custom
ALU
IR PC
 Compromise between general-purpose and
single-purpose processors Data
memory
Features
Program
memory
 Program memory Assembly code
 Optimized datapath for:

 Special functional units total = 0

for i =1 to …

Benefits
 Some flexibility, good performance, size and
power
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 IC technology
The manner in which a digital (gate-level)
implementation is mapped onto an IC
 IC: Integrated circuit, or “chip”
 IC technologies differ in their customization to a design
 IC’s consist of numerous layers (perhaps 10 or more)
 IC technologies differ with respect to who builds each layer and when
 Three types of IC technologies
 Full-custom/VLSI
 Semi-custom ASIC (gate array and standard cell)
 PLD (Programmable Logic Device)

gate
IC package IC oxide
source channel drain
Silicon substrate

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 Full-custom/VLSI
All layers are optimized for an embedded
system’s particular digital implementation
 Placing transistors
 Sizing transistors
 Routing wires
Benefits
 Excellent performance, small size, low power
Drawbacks
 High NRE cost (e.g., $300k), long time-to-market

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 Semi-custom
Lower layers are fully or partially built
 Designers are left with routing of wires and
maybe placing some blocks
Benefits
 Good performance, good size, less NRE cost
than a full-custom implementation (perhaps
$10k to $100k)
Drawbacks
 Still require weeks to months to develop
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 PLD (Programmable Logic
Device)
All layers already exist
 Designers can purchase an IC
 Connections on the IC are either created or
destroyed to implement desired functionality
 Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) very popular
Benefits
 Low NRE costs, almost instant IC availability
Drawbacks
 Bigger, expensive (perhaps $30 per unit), power
hungry, slower

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 Moore’s law
The most important trend in embedded systems
 Predicted in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore
 IC transistor capacity has doubled roughly every 18
months for the past several decades

10,000
1,000

Logic transistors 100

per chip 10
(in millions) 1
0.1
Note:
0.01
logarithmic scale
0.001

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 Graphical illustration of Moore’s
law
1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002

10,000 150,000,000
transistors transistors

Leading edge Leading edge

chip in 1981 chip in 2002

Something that doubles frequently grows more quickly

than most people realize!
 A 2002 chip can hold about 15,000 1981 chips inside itself

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 Design Technology
The manner in which we convert our concept of
desired system functionality into an implementation

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 The co-design ladder
In the past: Sequential program code (e.g., C, VHDL)

 Hardware and software Compilers

Behavioral synthesis
(1990's)
design technologies were (1960's,1970's)

very different
Register transfers
Assembly instructions RT synthesis
 Recent maturation of Assemblers, linkers
(1980's, 1990's)

synthesis enables a unified (1950's, 1960's) Logic equations / FSM's

view of hardware and Logic synthesis

(1970's, 1980's)
Machine instructions
software Logic gates

Hardware/software
“codesign”
Implementation
Microprocessor plus VLSI, ASIC, or PLD
program bits: “software” implementation: “hardware”

The choice of hardware versus software for a particular function is simply a tradeoff among various
design metrics, like performance, power, size, NRE cost, and especially flexibility; there is no
fundamental difference between what hardware or software can implement.

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 Independence of processor and
IC technologies
Basic tradeoff
 General vs. custom
 With respect to processor technology or IC technology
 The two technologies are independent

General- Single-
purpose ASIP purpose
General, processor processor Customized,
providing improved: providing improved:

Flexibility Power efficiency

Maintainability Performance
NRE cost Size
Time- to-prototype Cost (high volume)
Time-to-market
Cost (low volume)

PLD Semi-custom Full-custom

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 Designing hardware and software
components
You must spend time architecting the system before
you start coding
Some components
 are ready-made
 some can be modified from existing designs
 others must be designed from scratch
Example:
 SOPC for Hardware design
 Nios 2 IDE for Software Design

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 Design productivity exponential
increase 100,000

(K)
10,000

1,000

Trans./Staff – Mo.
Productivity
100

10

0.1

0.01

2005
1993

2001

2003
1983

1987
1985

1991
1989

1999
1997
1995

2007

2009
Exponential increase over the past few
decades
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 Design productivity gap
While designer productivity has grown at an impressive
rate over the past decades, the rate of improvement has
not kept pace with chip capacity
10,000 100,000
1,000 10,000

Logic transistors 100 1000

per chip 10 Gap 100 (K)
IC capacity
(in millions) 1 10
0.1 1
productivity
0.01 0.1 Productivity
0.001 0.01 Trans./Staff-Mo.

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