EECS 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Embedded System, Computer Hardware, Discrete Event Simulation
27 Apr 2018
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EECS – 18000 – Intro to EE & CPE
Week 1 – Lecture 4 – Research in Embedded Design
Computers
• General Purpose
• Special Purpose: Embedded Systems
o They don’t really look like embedded systems, but internally, they behave
like computers
o Just computers that need to be programmed
o Very small and still dedicated towards their one purpose
• Only 2% of processors are in workstations
o 98% are in embedded systems
• Embedded system design is needed; the major and field are growing almost
exponentially
Embedded Systems
• Research
o Modelling and simulation
▪ Starts with the model that we then simulate and execute
▪ What is a model though?
• Representation of something
• Blueprints are models for buildings
o What does this make the building? Reality!
• Model by itself is abstraction of reality
o We know what reality is; we can build models of
things we see in reality, and we models are an
abstraction of what we see
▪ What is abstraction though?
• A simplification
• Some features are explicitly shown, and others aren’t
• Blueprints emphasis size, height etc, and can also simplify
by omission
▪ What’s good about abstract models?
• Can choose to describe what details about the building to
convey
• Abstraction actually tends to work with many other mediums
as well
o Then validation and verification
• Electronic System Level Models
o Abstract description of a complete embedded system
o Hardware + software
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▪ This is mostly what we’re interested in
▪ Computer hardware and the software running on the
microprocessors
o Key concepts in system modelling
▪ What are we interested in and not interested in seeing in models?
• When you write code, you are writing some abstraction of
functionality and behavior that the computer executes
o We use this all the time
• Programming languages, compilers, and programming
execution are the software side of modelling
• How the microprocessor is actually designed
o This is the hardware side of modeling
o Just to understand how you’d create it yourself rather
than relying on other companies entirely for products
like microprocessors
▪ What are the key concepts in addition to programming languages?
• Explicit Structure
o Block diagram structure
▪ Structure in general is very important for
engineering
▪ Implies some sort of relationship between the
connectivity
o Connectivity through ports
• Explicit hierarchy
o The concept of hierarchy is needed because of the
level of complexity in nowadays devices
▪ Millions of transistors interacting with one
another
▪ The result is that there is a necessary level of
abstraction
▪ The idea is to take a group of functions or
code, group them under another name, and
then refer to it as such
▪ This kind of abstraction can be done often
o System composed of components
• Explicit concurrency
o Potential for parallel execution
▪ Functions running parallel to each other
▪ Multiple units execute multiple cells by
themselves and achieve goals
o Potential for pipelined execution
▪ Sequential execution
• Research Project Example
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
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