Implementation Strategies for Complex Embedded Systems

Question 1

A key characteristic of all embedded systems
is that they are designed to perform a

Answer 1

Specific
task or function.

Question 2

can range from a simple
stand-alone device to a chassis of networked
cards to a system composed of many separate
networked embedded elements

Answer 2

Embedded system

Question 3

The traditional design approach
has been to traverse the two sides
of the accompanying diagram
separately. That is:

Answer 3

Design the hardware
components.
* Design the software
components.
* Bring the two together.
* Spend time testing and
debugging the system.

Question 4

The Hardware Portion of
the life cycle involves:

Answer 4

• the design
• development
• test of the physical system
  architecture
• packaging printed circuit
  boards and the individual
  components.

Question 5

Entails the tasks or algorithmic
portion of the application.

Answer 5

The Software Portion

Question 6

Good system designers and
designs proceed using a
minimum of five steps:

Answer 6

• Requirements Definition.
• System Specification.
• Functional Design.
• Architectural Design.
• Prototyping

Question 7

is
to capture a formal
description of the
complete system from
the customer’s point of
view and then to
document these needs
as written definitions
and descriptions.

Answer 7

The goal of the
requirements
identification process

Question 8

• Name and Description of the
  Entity
• Responsibilities—Activities
• Relationships
• Safety and Reliability

Answer 8

THE ENVIRONMENT

Question 9

• System Inputs and Outputs
• Responsibilities—Activities
• Safety and Reliability

Answer 9

THE SYSTEM

Question 10

a precise description of
the system that meets stated requirements.

Answer 10

SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

Question 11

Ideally, a specification document should be

Answer 11

• Complete
• Consistent
• Comprehensible
  *Traceable to the requirements
• Unambiguous
• Modifiable
  *Able to be written

Question 12

is
carried out based on a search of
essential internal variables and
events in the system

Answer 12

A first functional decomposition

Question 13

In executing an ——– ——-,
the goal is to select the most
appropriate solution to the original
problems based on exploration of a
variety of architectures and the
choice of the best-suited
hardware/software partitioning and
allocation of functionality.

Answer 13

architectural design

Question 14

Software design - the following must be analyzed and
decided:

Answer 14

• Whether to use a real-time kernel
• Whether several functions can be
  combined in order to reduce the
  number of software
• tasks and if so, how?
• A priority for each task
  Software design

Question 15

Hardware Architecture -Among the important criteria that we
strive to optimize are:

Answer 15

• Implementation (or factory) cost
• Development time and cost
• Performance and dependability
  constraints
• Power consumption
• Size

Question 16

The number of bits assigned
to registers:

Answer 16

• 8-bit
• 16-bit
• 32-bit
• 64-bit

Question 17

Central Processing Unit (CPU)
Important considerations:

Answer 17

Clock speed
Level of parallelism offered by the processor

Question 18

The range of an embedded microprocessor
system is from the low hundreds of
megahertz (200 MHz) to over 1GHz.

Answer 18

Clock speed

Question 19

Processors also offer instructions that are
—————- ———- to optimize the execution of
algorithms that exhibit data-level parallelism.

Answer 19

Single Instructions, Multiple Data
(SIMD)

Question 20

where with the
addition of a relatively small amount of logic,
the processor presents two separate logical
cores

Answer 20

Symmetric multithreading

Question 21

As —– —– increase, more and more logic is added to
the processor die, creating families
of application-specific service
processors

Answer 21

integration levels

Question 22

often used to
describe these highly integrated
processors.

Answer 22

system on
chip (SOC)

Question 23

SOCs integrate capabilities to connect
the SOC to external memory devices
and nonvolatile storage devices using

Answer 23

glue-less interfaces

Question 24

a term used to indicate
that there is no additional logic needed
to connect the two devices,
Integration Level

Answer 24

Glue-less

Question 25

In order to develop efficient power aware
systems, it is often beneficial for an embedded
application to group work into bursts of activity
with the processor running at full clock rate
followed by periods of processor idle states.

Answer 25

Power Consumption

Question 26

In many cases, considerable effort is expended
in designing a core compute module that can be
employed in a number of different product lines
with varying I/O or interface capabilities.

Answer 26

Form Factor

Question 27

An attribute often sacrificed in designing
embedded systems is the ability to expand
hardware capabilities over time.

Answer 27

Expansion

Question 28

Application-Specific
Hardware
Add capabilities by adding a —
—
or
by developing an —–

Answer 28

field-
programmable gate array (FPGA), application-
specific integrated circuit (ASIC)

Question 29

There are many safety and security
standards that may be applicable to
the industry you work in, such as:

Answer 29

• Multilevel secure (MLS)
• Safety Integrity Level (SIL)
• Federal Information Processing
  Standards Publications (FIPs)

Question 30

It is important to validate and test your
system by running your system for several
days and reviewing such resources.

Answer 30

Reliability/Availability

Question 31

There are also features such as:
—- ——–
- automatically corrects single bit errors and
detects multiple bit errors in memory.

Answer 31

Error-Correcting-Code (ECC) memory

Question 32

The embedded platforms must support the
latest IP stacks. Finally, a transition to IPv6 is
likely.
Ethernet is the ubiquitous wired interface
available on many platforms.

Answer 32

Connectivity

Question 33

It is critical that embedded devices
have an active life cycle, where
security-related updates are pushed
to the devices just as they are in the
desktop environment.

Answer 33

Security

Question 34

A prototype implementation includes:

Answer 34

Detailed
design
* Debugging
* Validation
* Testing