What are the characteristics of Embedded systems?
There are many characteristics of Embedded systems. A few of them are mentioned below:
- Embedded systems are to perform a specific task. Unlike your personal computer (PC) or mobile phone, embedded systems are designed to do one task. For example, an mp3 player.
- Some Embedded systems required real-time performance. They need to run on a digital clock. For example flight control system, real-time monitors. I will write about real-time computing in the near future.
- Embedded systems frequently have very little or no user interface (UI) such as a mouse, keyboard or monitor/touch screen. For example, the Bottle recycling system.
- Embedded systems are energy and cost-efficient. They are very inexpensive, and you can create your own Embedded systems under $100.
- The software for Embedded systems is called firmware. The software is stored in read-only memory (ROM) or flash memory.
- Embedded systems are very fast, and have higher frequency. I am using an FPGA board from Xilinx (Nexys 4 DDR board) that has internal clock of 450 Mhz. At the time of writing this post, 450 Mhz is fast.
- Embedded systems are not easy to modify. Good luck modifying an mp3 to a personal computer!
What’s next on the blog?
Sign up to get my blog post regularly. Next, I will write about the types of embedded systems. Meanwhile, check out the book “The HCS12/9S12: An Introduction to Software and Hardware Interfacing”.
Check out my other post about embedded systems, //abdurrob.org/embedded-system/
References
Huang, Han-Way. The HCS12/9S12: an Introduction to Software and Hardware Interfacing. Delmar/Cengage Learning, 2010.