Module 4
Embedded System
Course Instructor: Dr Rohan Pinto
21/08/2023
Text Books
1. Introduction to Embedded System
Author: Shibu K V.
Edition: 2nd Edition.
Embedded system
● Embedded system is an electronic/electro-mechanical system
designed to perform specific function.
● It is a combination of both hardware and software
● It is unique, hardware and software is highly specialized to an
application
● Uses: household appliances, telecommunications, medical
equipments, industry, consumer products, etc.
Embedded system vs General computing system
General purpose computing system Embedded system
Combination of generic hardware and Combination of special purpose of
general purpose of operating system hardware and embedded OS
Contains General purpose operating May or may not contain an operating
system (GPOS) system
Applications are altered by the user Cannot be altered by the end user, it is
pre-programmed
Performance is the key factor in Application specific requirement like
selection of the system. performance, power requirement,
memory are the key deciding factor.
Operating power requirement is not Hardware and operating system take
reduced advantage of power saving
Response requirement are not time Response time requirement is highly
critical time critical
Need not be deterministic in execution Execution behaviour is deterministic for
behaviour certain type of embedded system
Classification of embedded system
1. Classification based on generation
● First generation - 8 bit microprocessor 8085 and 4 bit
microcontroller, simple hardware and assembly code. Eg.
telephone keypads, stepper motor
● Second generation - 16 bit microprocessor and 8 or 16 bit
microcontroller, hardware and assembly code were much more
complex and powerful than first generation. Eg Data acquisition
system
● Third generation - Powerful 32-bit processors and 16-bit
microcontroller, Domain specific processor like Digital Signal
Processor and ASIC. Instruction set are more complex and
powerful. Pipelining is involved. Eg. Pentium, motorola
● Fourth generation - System on chip (SoC), reconfigurable
processor and multicore processors. Eg. Smart phones
2. Classification based on complexity and performance
● Small scale embedded systems - Simple in application need,
performance requirements are not time critical, low
performance and low cost, 8-bit microprocessor/microcontroller.
Eg. Electronic toy
● Medium scale embedded system - Slightly complex in hardware
and software requirements. Used for medium performance, low
cost, 16 or 32-bit microprocessor/ microcontroller
● Large scale embedded system - Highly complex hardware and
software requirements. Mission critical applications demanding
high performance. 32 or 64 processor/ controller. Eg. Decoding/
encoding of media, RTOS for prioritization and management
Major application areas of embedded systems
1. Consumer electronics
2. Household applications
3. Home automation and security system
4. Automotive industry
5. Telecommunications
6. Computer peripherals
7. Computer networking system
8. Healthcare
9. Measurement and Instrumentation
10. Banking and Retail
11. Card readers
Elements of embedded system
Core of the embedded system
Falls in one of the four categories
1. General purpose and domain specific processors
● Microprocessor
● Microcontroller
● Digital Signal Processor
2. Application specific integrated circuits (ASIC)
3. Programmable logic devices (PLDs)
4. Commercial off the shelf components (COTS)
Difference between Microprocessor and Microcontroller
Microprocessor Microcontroller
Silicon chip representing CPU, An integrated circuit consisting
capable of performing arithmetic of CPU, RAM, ROM, general
and logic operation by a purpose registers, timer and
pre-defined instrustruction set interrupt control unit and
dedicated I/O ports
Dependent unit, requires chips Self contained unit
like timers, memory and data,
interrupt controller
Mostly general purpose in Mostly domain specific
design and operation
Does not contain a built in I/O Contains built-in I/O ports
port. It needs to be
implemented with external
interface
Targeted for high end market Targeted for embedded market
where performance is critical where performance is not
critical
Limited power saving options Lot of power saving features
Difference between RISC and CISC processors
RISC CISC
Lesser number of instructions Greater number of instructions
Instruction pipelining and No instruction pipelining feature
increased execution speed
Allow each instruction to operate Not allowed to operate on any
on any register and use any register and use of any
addressing mode addressing mode
Operations are performed on Operations are performed on
registers only registers or memory
Large number of registers are Limited number of general
available purpose registers
More codes to execute a task Instructions are like macros in C
language
Single, fixed length instruction Variable length instruction
Less silicon usage and pin count More silicon usage
Harvard architecture Harvard or Von-Neuman
architecture