Embedded Systems Flashcards
What is an external system?
A system where the computer control is added on to the engineering system.
What is an embedded system?
A system where the computer control is built into the engineering system.
What are the pros of an external system?
Extensive flexibility with the scope of the control, particularly the speed and memory.
What are the cons of an external system (4)?
- Expensive
- Messy
- Bulky
- Not suited for mass production
What are the pros of an embedded system (6)?
- Cost-effective
- Small, low-power
- Reliable
- Robust
- Mass-producible
- Easily-serviceable
What are the cons of an embedded system (3)?
- Constraints on memory capacity and speed
- Programming can be more complex
- There can often be specific electronic interfacing requirements
What are embedded systems?
Anything that uses a microprocessor but isn’t a computer.
What is a microprocessor?
Implemented single-chip central processing units. They take instructions from the memory and follow those instructions to process the binary running through them.
What are Microcontrollers?
Tiny computer-based processing units with little memory. They contain a microprocessor.
What is a bit?
A 1 or a 0
What is a byte?
8 bits
What is a nibble?
4 bits
What is a word?
16 bits
Why do microcontrollers use hexadecimal (2)?
- Binary is cumbersome
- Decimal becomes obscure for some addressing purposes
What is RAM (4)?
- Read And write Memory
- Volatile: Information lost when power is removed)
- Read means the processor can store information
- Write means the processor can receive information from the memory
What is ROM (2)?
- Read Only Memory
- Non volatile but can be erasable
What is PROM?
Programmable Read Only Memory
What is EROM?
Erasable Read Only Memory
What is EEPROM?
Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory
What are the 4 types of BUS in a microprocessor based system?
- Power
- Control
- Address
- Data
What is the Control Bus (4)?
- Consists of 4 -10 parallel signal lines
- CPU sends signals to memory and I/O ports
- Examples: Memory read/Memory write/I/O read/I/O write
- Bidirectional
What is the Address Bus (3)?
- Consists of 16,20,24, or 32 parallel signals
- Contains the location of the memory to read/write
- Unidirectional
What is the Data Bus (3)?
- Consists of 8, 16, or 32 parallel signal lines
- Only one device at a time can have it’ s outputs enabled
- Bidirectional