Tooling
up for tomorrows world
We use embedded computers everyday
- we dont see most of them because, as their name implies,
theyre buried deep inside almost everything that effects
our daily lives - from industrial equipment to domestic appliances.
Although they dont receive anything like as much attention
from the media as does the ignoble PC, the sheer number of embedded
computers and their economic importance is considerable. In fact,
around ninety percent of all microprocessors manufactured
in any one year are destined to be embedded inside electronic
products.
Theres no getting away
from them - those clever pieces of silicon that pervade our lives.
The electronic radio-alarm arouses us from our slumbers. The
central-heating has already turned itself on -just long enough
to take the chill off the bedroom. We take a shower with lashings
of hot water. A quick look at the early morning TV, station-hopping
with the remote-control. Silicon surrounds us as we drive to
the office - dozens and dozens of little wafers of silicon, making
sure the car starts, the brakes work, the temperature is just
right...and so it goes on throughout our working day and into
our relaxing evening.
In 1997, some 30 million microprocessor
chips (or to give them their proper name, Central Processing
Units - CPUs) were shipped into the PC World. Compare that with
the number of CPUs destined for the embedded computer world -
well over 3
Billion. And around one billion of those contained powerful and
sophisticated software systems valued at an estimated $10 billion.
Designing
Embedded Systems
The processes and components
that make up an embedded system application are much like those
of the general purpose computing world - hardware, software and
data, perhaps with networking thrown in. The key difference lies
in the speed with which the embedded application must work on
the data it receives to produce a result, and the reliability
of that result. It has to work very quickly and it has to work
every time - just think of the braking system in your car. You
would be less than happy if the software controlling those brakes
took a few seconds to decide to operate whenever you hit the
brake pedal!
An added constraint in the
embedded systems world is cost. If your video recorder contained
the latest top-of-the-range Pentium microprocessor it would be
unaffordable commercially. So, low cost chips (hardware) with
very high quality applications (software) and accurate data are
the order of the day in the embedded systems world.
Traditionally the approach
to designing a product that requires an embedded application
has been a two-handed affair. A requirements document is the
input used for the specification/partitioning phase of the process.
After the design is partitioned into its hardware and software
components, the detailed hardware and software design and the
implementation are done independently.
When both are completed they
come together during the integration and test phase. This is
the first chance that the software has to run on the hardware
and vice-versa. Invariably, changes will have to be made and
so its back to the drawing board - usually just for the
software as its too expensive to redo the hardware at this
point in the product cycle. Eventually a second prototype is
created and the testing process is repeated. Too often, its
back to the drawing board once more, or else trade-offs are made
of the "its not exactly right but it will have to
do" variety and the product is shipped to the customer.
Frequently the product does not have the full functionality promised
and does not run at full,speed.
Obviously, this process of
designing and developing hardware and software separately is
time consuming, expensive and unproductive - three aspects which
have a profound effect on the competitiveness of a company. If
only the hardware and the software could be designed together
and tested at a very early stage in the life-cycle then costs
could be reduced, the final product could be brought to market
more quickly and the resulting gains in productivity would improve
the competitive health of the company.
In this article, we will look
at the state-of-play in the embedded system world today, and
at a European Union initiative to develop the tools and techniques
needed to design and develop embedded hardware and software as
a single entity.
The Art
of Co-design
The relatively new technique
of designing hardware/software components together for an embedded
system is called Co-design. Co-design focuses on
the areas of system specification (co-specification techniques),
architectural design and hardware/software partitioning (co-synthesis)
and the interaction between the hardware and software as the
design progresses (co-verification or co-simulation).
To achieve the goals of successful
co-design, state-of-the-art, cost-effective tools are needed
to ensure the quality, reliability, manageability and flexibility
of embedded application design and development. One of the ways
to capitalise on the use of
hardware/software co-design is by taking advantage of advances
made by commercial software engineering tool vendors.
The European
Union and OMI
The Open Microprocessor systems
Initiative (OMI) was established in 1993 as part of the European
Unions Esprit Programme ((European Strategic Programme
for Research and development in Information Technology). OMIs
vision is for Europe to have a credible, word-class standing
in the provision of microprocessor systems and related technology
- in other words, the hardware and the software of an embedded
system. In 1995, it joined forces with the Microelectronics and
Computer technology Corporation (MCC) in the USA to undertake
a world-wide survey of current practice and the tools needed
to achieve successful hardware/software co-design.
OMI, realising from the outset
that building embedded systems from third party components has
the greatest potential to improve the capability of European
industry to meet market needs, has provided the framework in
which the necessary tools and techniques can be developed in
a cost-effective manner, and rapidly brought to market.
Over 350 European companies
have participated in the OMI programme, amongst them some of
Europes most famous names - Siemens & Daimler Benz
from Germany, GEC Plessey & British Aerospace from UK, Thomson
& Alcatel from France, Fiat & Olivetti from Italy. These
companies have matched EU funding to the tune of around $250
million on projects that have led to the development of world-class
products.
OMI Projects
For close on five years, OMI
supported projects have been producing the hardware/software
development tools the market wants. Tools that have been designed
to work together, which can reduce time-to-market and allow for
the re-use of code - three key areas of demand cited by all industrial
sectors in many surveys. OMI projects have produced tools that
enable the early detection of design flaws through the co-verification
of hardware and software from the start of the design process.
Tiny operating system software to manage the performance of the
embedded application, as well as techniques to standardise the
development process, which in turn leads to improved productivity.
These tools are not theoretical
- doomed for ever to remain in the libraries of academia, nor
are they prototypes - destined to gather dust on the shelves
of the R&D lab. They are real products that have been developed
specifically to address the needs of the embedded systems market.
For example, one project has
evolved an holistic approach to the microelectronics systems
development cycle, providing a complete environment from requirements
analysis through design, development and testing to run-time.
Another is focused on the cost-effective re-use of code, bringing
the concept of object-oriented programming to the modelling of
how an embedded system will behave in real-life. While the goal
of a third project is to achieve the early detection of design
errors by the integration of the hardware and software design
process. This project focuses on the specific areas of the development
cycle key to detecting early design flaws - namely design co-verification,
complete (hardware/software) system modelling and simulation,
monitoring and performance evaluation as well as design flow
traceability. All the tools developed have been embedded into
a common framework, allowing the exchange of
design data and providing a consistent, easy-to-use interface.
The way
forward
All the above co-design tools
and techniques form only part of the huge effort being supported
through OMI to strengthen European industry in all areas of advanced
electronic processing and control. Tools that validate and verify
the design process for hardware & software systems, helping
to significantly improve the achievement of right-first-time-design;
Tools which reduce the burden of development and time-to-market
by enabling both re-use and improved testing capabilities. State-of-the-art
tools which indeed provide European embedded systems designers
with a competitive edge. Information on the work, the results
and the participants in all the OMI projects can be found at
the OMI Web site - www/omimo/be.
The ever increasing demand
for greater complexity and functionality from embedded software
will mean that more and more use is made of advanced third-party
software to minimise development, testing time and cost of these
more powerful applications. Although most embedded software is
still developed entirely in house, the International Data Corporation
(IDC) estimate that the use of third-party software in the embedded
world will continue to grow year on year by around 25% - with
an estimate for 1998 of $1 billion. As the cost of the software
per chip continues to rise - a major industry concern, especially
in the volume market - and in many cases now exceeds the actual
cost of the silicon, the need for high quality, third-party co-design
tools will become paramount.
The European Union R&D
programmes run in four-year cycles. The next - known as the Fifth
Framework - is scheduled to start at the beginning of 1999. Co-design
technologies will continue to be at the forefront of the OMI
programme - providing European industry with a leading edge to
compete effectively in tomorrows world.
0MI Bulletins are occasional
leaflets published by the OMI PROMISE project.
0MI,The Open Microprocessor systems Initiative, is a programme
set up by the European Information Technology industry and the
European Commission in the framework of Esprit the European strategic
Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology. |