Rita Glover, EDA Today, L.C.
May 2002
Embedded systems are found just about everywhere in our daily lives – and
they are quickly creating a shift in our definition of "computers."
According to industry analyst Jim Turley, only 1 percent of the world's
microprocessors are found in personal computers. The other 99 percent
are used in a wide variety of embedded systems.
An embedded system is any product or device (short of an actual personal
computer) that has logic and computing power built into it. As
microprocessors get smaller, cheaper, and more powerful, they enable potent
functionality to be designed into a wide variety of products. Examples
of embedded systems include cell phones, anti-lock braking systems for
vehicles, security systems for homes and offices, military weaponry, and
avionics.
One of several regional Embedded Systems Conferences was held in San
Francisco on March 12-16, 2002. The show attracted more than 15,000
members of the embedded computing community to explore critical embedded
design issues, including Internet appliance design, wireless architectures,
DSPs, Java, and real-time design. More than 330 suppliers of
semiconductors, development tools, software, and services were present.
The conference program offered 205 classes and tutorials to help designers
gain knowledge and skills to make their embedded designs better, faster, and
more reliable.
One of the highlights of this ESC was an Innovation Showcase -- a tour of
the top embedded end products, from speech-translating PDAs to networked
home appliances, entertainment consoles, and air monitors. The
showcase featured a demonstration of a futuristic hybrid sports utility
vehicle (SUV) that doubles the fuel efficiency of a standard SUV while
increasing performance. Embedded into the vehicle were some of the
most advanced technologies for vehicle operation, maintenance, and in-car
entertainment.
Programmable devices have become not only viable, but a platform of
choice for advanced embedded system designs. The Xilinx Virtex-II
devices mark the first embodiment of platform FPGAs – a flexible solution
that allows a wide variety of hard and soft IP cores to be integrated on a
single device whose hardware and firmware can be upgraded at any time.
Xilinx offers an Internet Reconfigurable Logic methodology that allows
hardware for these FPGA-based embedded systems to be upgraded over networks
to add new features or capabilities, or to repair problems.
Xilinx and EDA vendor Cadence Design Systems announced an alliance for
developing embedded system and board-level design solutions for Xilinx
Virtex-II FPGAs. A goal of the alliance will be to enable designers to
work at higher levels of abstraction throughout the functional design flow.
Cadence customers will be able to readily retarget their designs to both
FPGAs and ASICs, and the companies will collaborate on advanced system-level
design technologies and methodologies to prepare for the next generation of
multiprocessor FPGAs.
Competing programmable logic vendor Altera announced the release of a new
automated system generation tool called SOPC Builder that simplifies and
accelerates the process of developing Systems on Programmable Chips (SOPCs)
using Altera's high-density programmable logic devices. The tool
automates the task of defining, parameterizing, and linking IP cores,
including multiple embedded processors.
With SOPC Builder, users can select and parameterize IP components from
an extensive list of communication, DSP, microprocessor, and bus interface
cores, as well as incorporate their own IP. Designers then generate a
synthesized netlist, simulation testbench, and custom software library that
reflect the hardware configuration.
All of Altera's Excalibur embedded processor solutions are being
delivered with a high-performance ARM processor that can run at up to 200
MHz. The ARM-based Excalibur devices include additional internal
memory, peripherals, external memory controllers, and JTAG interfaces for
software debug. Altera implemented the processor and its support
functions as an embedded "stripe" at the edge of the device to optimize the
subsystem's performance without impacting the PLD logic or routing
resources.
One important technology trend that became apparent at ESC was the
evolution of proprietary languages for domain-specific use, such as
communications protocols and adaptive computing devices. These
high-level description methods provide a mechanism for users to map
specifications into a specialized design entry format. This is then
compiled by vendor-specific tools into several types of output:
standard HDLs for downstream hardware design, assembler code for firmware,
and C/C++ for software.
In the software domain, a new formalism called Extreme Programming (XP)
has been receiving a great deal of attention, and one of the ESC tutorials
described the use of XP in embedded development environments. XP is a
development process that is strongly focused upon producing sound software
architectures, while delivering required functionality to customers on time
and within budget.
Advocates claim that by adopting XP programming practices, both
productivity and software quality can be improved. The down side is
that XP is usually a significant departure from current software design
methodologies. The many successes of XP lend weight to its arguments
concerning up-front analysis and design, manpower deployment, and testing.
The Virtual Socket Interface Alliance (VSIA) held a meeting at ESC to
announce a new initiative being launched to provide industry-wide focus on
developing embedded software reuse standards to improve the productivity of
System-on-Chip (SoC) design. The ratio of software engineers to
hardware engineers on a project team has become 5-10 to 1, making it
increasingly important to reuse software rather than redesign it for each
new product.
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