Because so many of today’s products and gadgets include embedded systems, embedded design is an important part of product design. The brains of an embedded system is the central processor. There are many different options for processors, including micro controllers, DSPs (digital signal processors), simple architectures, such as RISC, and complicated PC architectures. Examples of processor manufacturers include Freescale (formerly Motorola), IBM, Intel, Atmel, AMD, and Texas Instruments. The processor selected for your embedded design should have appropriate buses and I/O for your system.
Depending on the needs of the embedded system, the central processor (micro controller) will likely need additional devices to perform all the needed tasks, ranging from actuating motion, fans, and pumps through motors, to reading position, temperature (thermocouples or infrared), light, sound (microphone), to interaction with the user (buttons, speakers, LCDs, touch panels, and other displays), to interacting with other systems (wireless, ZigBee, Ethernet, modem, USB, serial). It is important to select a micro controller that either can handle all of the necessary tasks on its own or has enough digital inputs and outputs or other channels (SPI bus, CAN, serial, I2C) to control peripheral devices needed. Analog inputs and outputs and PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) channels are also a concern.
There are two major routes that can be taken with embedded design, depending on the expected manufacturing volume of the final devices. A device with high manufacturing volume should be built from many small components, reducing per unit cost but increasing the overall design time and engineering cost. For a device with low manufacturing volume, it may make more sense to use a pre-packaged Single Board Computer, which is typically much more expensive per unit, but can greatly reduce engineering time and cost. Single Board Computer manufacturers include Intel and Eurotech.
The bulk of embedded design consists of (1) circuit design and printed circuit board layout and (2) embedded programming. These tasks are typically done in complex software, such as Altium, OrCad, or one of dozens of other packages. Circuit design can be a simple matter of integrating a basic power supply and attaching any needed peripherals to the appropriate device. It also could be a matter of complex transistor network design, filtering, oscillatory circuits, power electronics, and trace balancing. The initial circuit design is called schematic design, involving drawing out the actual electronic component interconnections. The final part is board layout, where each component’s footprint is placed on the printed circuit board and the connections between devices are routed (trace routing).
The embedded design requires programming. There are many different programming architectures that can be used in embedded design, including interrupts, polling, operating systems, and multi-tasking. The programming language platform and libraries available are many, but include C programming language and low level assembly.
For more information regarding embedded design see www.embedded-design.org
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