1. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Embedded System Design: Traditional vs. Modern Style
Maziar Goudarzi

2. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Today Program
Embedded System Design Process
Traditional approach
Analysis & discussion
Modern approaches
Course final project
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

3. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Traditional Approach
output
CPU
analog
input
analog
Logic
mem
embedded
computer
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

4. Bottom View of Arvand Robots
Design Example
steering motors (not shown)
Robot Control Unit (RCU) of Arvand soccer-playing robots
motion wheels
Touch sensors
Infra-Red Sensors
castor wheel
Bottom View of Arvand Robots
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

5. Design Example (cont’d)
Things to handle
Motors
PWM for motion motors
DC control for steering
Touch sensors
Read-in and refresh values
Infra-Red sensors
Reset, then read them
Communication to the main motherboard
RS-232 serial link
motion wheels
castor wheel
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

6. Design Example (cont’d)
Implementation steps
Choose HW or SW implementation per operation
Design the analog IO parts
Design the Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
Pass the PCB files to manufacturing firms
HW: Develop the FPGA contents
Program the FPGA configuration EEPROM
SW: Develop the 8051 program
Program the 8051 instruction memory (EEPROM)
Integrate HW, SW, and the PCB
Test
Limited test in isolation (as far as possible)
Test in action (on the robot)
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

7. Design Example (cont’d)
Traditional System Design Process
Time
Tasks
PCB design
SW design
FPGA design
System
design
Fabrication
Test
PCB test
SW test
Simulation
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

8. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Analysis
Development
Isolated (SW, HW, Analog electronics)
Consistency check: designers
Debug
Before PCB is available
Isolated (SW, HW, Analog)
After PCB is available
Remove the EEPROM/8051
Change the configuration/program
Re-insert the EEPROM/8051
What if PCB initial design (or analog parts) was wrong?
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

9. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Analysis (cont’d)
Some other problems
Tools used
Protel, OrCAD for PCB
Altera MAX+Plus II for FPGA
8051 command-line compiler and debugger
Tool interoperability issues
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

10. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Solution
Try to do as much of the tests as early as possible in the design cycle
Step 1: Combine HW and SW simulation
Step 2: Add analog parts as well
Analog Mixed-Signal (AMS) simulation
Step 3: Entire design of the PCB?
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

11. Modern Design Style (HW+SW)
Co-Design Process
Tasks
System-Level Partitioning
SW design
SW test
System
design
Shared Design
PCB test
HW design
Time
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

12. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Modern Design Style
Various approaches
Application-Specific Instruction Processor (ASIP)
Platform-based design
Communication-based design
Component-based (core-based) design
etc.
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

13. The approach to be evaluated here
Tasks
Compile SW
System
Design
Data type refinement
Parallelize
Integrate & Test
Design interface
Synthesize HW
Time
C++
SystemC
Xilinx tools
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

14. Ideas for course project
Alternative 1: App. case study
Select an embedded application
Design an executable specification for it
Step by step manually refine it to HW-SW implementation
Report performance, area, power & compare with full-SW & write a paper (optional)
Suggestions
Data compressor/decompressor
Voice codec
A game
JPEG, JPEG2000
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

15. Ideas for course project (cont’d)
Alternative 2: Methodology case study
Select a system design language and methodology
Implement an application using them
Give a presentation
Suggestions:
Handle-C & Celoxica “DK Design Suite”
SpecC & the associated tools from UCI
Tensilica’s processor generator (XTensa processor)
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

16. Ideas for course project (cont’d)
Alternative 3: Case study in ODYSSEY
Select an application
Develop an OO C++ program for that
Implement it as HW-SW system using ODYSSEY tools and flows
Suggestions
The same applications as in alternative 1
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

17. Ideas for course project (cont’d)
Alternative 4: Implement algorithms
Select one of the co-synthesis algorithms (to be taught during the course)
Develop a program that implements the algorithm for ODYSSEY
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

18. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Summary
Problems inherent in traditional style of designing embedded systems
The general solution
A modern approach followed in this course and to be used in its final project
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

19. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Other Notes
Reading assignments on the course web-page
Announce by the end of next week (1 page)
Your team members (at most 3 persons)
Your selection for course project
Rough schedule
Other deadlines for the project
Report 1: Sun. Aban 15th
2-3 pages:
List of your collected material
Summary of what you’ve done + demo of the C++ app.
Your plan for next phases and role of each person
Report 2 + Oral presentation: Sun. Azar 13th
4-5 pages:
15 min. oral presentation
Summary of what you’ve done + experimental results (as far as available)
What’s remained? Plan to finish it.
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems

20. Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems
Tool Presentation
Short presentation of the tools to be used in the course project (now, in the lab.)
Xilinx EDK: Naser MohammadZadeh
Synopsys SystemC Compiler: Morteza NajafVand
2005
Design & Co-design of Embedded Systems