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Monday, October 29, 2007

About Embedded Systems

An embedded system is a special-purpose computer system that is designed to perform very small sets of designated activities. Embedded systems date back as early as the late 1960s where they used to control electromechanical telephone switches. The first recognizable embedded system was the Apollo guidance computer developed by Charles Draper and his team. Later they found their way into the military, medical sciences, and the aerospace and automobile industries. Today they are widely used to serve various purposes; some examples are the following.
  • Network equipment such as firewall, router, switch, and so on
  • Consumer equipment such as MP3 players, cell phones, PDAs, digital cameras, camcorders, home entertainment systems, and so on
  • Household appliances such as microwaves, washing machines, televisions, and so on
  • Mission-critical systems such as satellites and flight control.
Following are the key factors that differentiate an embedded system from a desktop computer.
  • Embedded systems are usually cost sensitive.
  • Most embedded systems have real-time constraints.
  • There are multitudes of CPU architectures (such as ARM®, MIPS®, PowerPC ™, etc.) that are used in embedded systems. Embedded systems employ application-specific processors. For example, the processor in your digital camera is specially tailored for image capturing and rendering.
  • Embedded systems have (and require) very few resources in terms of RAM, ROM, or other I/O devices as compared to a desktop computer.
  • Power management is an important aspect in most embedded systems.
  • The development and debugging environment in an embedded system is very different from a desktop computer. Embedded systems generally have an inbuilt circuitry for debugging purposes.
  • An embedded system is designed from both the hardware and software perspective, taking into account a specific application or set of applications. For example, your MP3 player may have a separate hardware MP3 decoder built inside it.

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