Ruffa Mae B.

Montemayor

BsCpE 4-1

The paper entitled “Embedded System Design Issues (the Rest of the Story)” by Philip Koopman,
Discussed some combination of cost pressure, long life-cycle, real-time requirements, reliability requirements,
and design culture dysfunction that are factors which make it difficult to be successful in terms of applying
methods and tools by traditional computer design to embedded application. The paper also seeks to expand the
area of discussion to encompass a wide range of embedded system, where the weaknesses and strengths are
tackles to have opportunities to improve the methodology and tool support in embedded system design. The
author of this paper bases the information and observation with his own experience in the field with the
commercial as well as military applications. The embedded system is defined as the combination of hardware
and software which together form a component of a larger machine. The paper make the discussion easier by
giving four systems example where the system portrays a real system: signal processing system, mission critical
control system, distributed control system and small consumer electronic system. The table is made with the
four examples where it shows the different area of concerns for embedded system design namely computer
design, system-level design, life-cycle support, and design culture adaptation. These areas are needed to
perfectly compete to the marketplace where the design will take the market or it will be effective to the market.
There are several requirements that should meet that are beyond the scope. These requirements have its own
category, the special computer design requirements, system level requirements, life-cycle support issues,
business model compatibility and design culture issues.

The embedded computer designers must guarantee the quality and the effectiveness of the system to
have tight constraints on both functionality and implementations. In particular areas like the real time operation
reactive to external events or reactive operations where the designers assumes the worst case performance of the
system which base on the correctness of their computations for the system. This computations or the reactive
computation is the software executes in response to external events. The small size and low weight, which the
transportation and portable systems are the main point of this area where it may be critical for fuel economy and
human endurance. On consumers and designers point of view one of their concerns is how safety the system is?
The risk associated with failure should take on account and even the reliability of the system. The paper also
consider the area where the harsh environment is taken to account, the excessive heat is often a problem,
especially on the systems or application that the combustions is involved. There are also problems of the
protection from the vibrations, shocks, lighting, power supply, fluctuations, water, corrosion, fire and general
physical abuse where the author observes that there should be accurate thermal modelling. The paper has taken
the cost sensitivity area because even though the embedded computer designs are very strict in terms of
requirements the cost is always an issue. The cost issue has the same level in urgency whether it is a small or
large system designers. These concerns are the areas where the issues in consumers or in the embedded
computer designers have caught their eyes.

The next requirement is the system level requirements, where the designers take account in the entire
system where making design decisions to compete in the market. There are areas that has been point out in this
papers these are the end-product utility where the end product’s goals is the utility not its capabilities. The
system safety and reliability where the whole embedded system matter. The controlling physical systems which
the environment interaction of the embedded computer is monitored and controlled by external machinery, in
order to do this analog inputs and outputs must be transformed to and from digital signal levels. And lastly is a
common issue, the power management where the battery consumption and conservation is the main point.
 Life-cycle support where the account support, maintenance, upgrades, and system retirement issues is
taken into account to actually to make profit there are factors affecting the life-cycle profitability, these factors
are the component acquisition where the components cost are noted for the benefit of all the system. System
certification where embedded computers can affect the safety as well as the performance of the system. Logistic
and repair where the failure of the systems comes down in the maintenance or repairs of the system until the
system is usable again. The upgrades are necessary for the system to update the functionality of the
components. And lastly in the life-cycle support is the long-term component availability where some of the
components are not economically available so the whole embedded computer should undergo an upgrade.

Business model is an important requirement in designing of embedded computers because it controls the
production and its production cost. The ratio of the embedded system varies in the single unit to millions of unit.
The trade-off design can be compared to the production cost both are important to be taken to account and
improving both will help the developers to deliver the product to the market.

In terms of designs we witness the evolution of many computers, from its design culture the maturity of
simulation and CAD tools has taken into account to provide accurate performance and cost predictions. Many
designers believed that embedded computers should be cost-effective than to build successive prototypes that
sometimes the non-specialist user cannot understand the interface or the design. Accounting for cost of
engineering design this area where the engineers thought that an expensive CAD tools will improved their
productivity, they should look for other tools and methods may be better received by managers that can
improved their productivity if the managers wants to increase the number of products that can be design rather
than the efficiency of the engineers on any given product design effort.

This paper explains the importance of the requirements to be meet in the embedded computers, and
systems. This requirement differs in terms of details, and scope from the desktop computer. The domination of
system design can be decided by the specific application and the interface with the external equipment. Long
life cycles and cost sensitivity requires more attention as it caught the eyes of the consumer in the market. But
to be successful future tools may be needed to increase scope even further to include the life-cycle issues and
even the business issues. This paper is helpful to understand well the issues that the embedded computers are
facing, the requirements that should be taking to account to properly manage the area that requires more
attentions.