Embedded Technology The Road Ahead

Imagine while reading a newspaper, you can take a pen-like device connected

to your computer or PDA and run it over the barcode-like feature printed

alongside the article or advertisement that interests you and your computer or

PDA automatically gets the contents from the Web.

Or, just imagine walking in a busy shopping mall and you come across a

billboard that catches your attention and you would like to get more details

about that product. You simply point your PDA at a particular corner in the

billboard and download the address of the relevant website and other details

from it, over infrared.

These are some of the applications that we will be encountering in our daily

life, soon. The products that enable these applications will have to be designed

in a different way, keeping in mind the cost and the time to market.

And, these applications, powerful yet compact and mobile, would form the core

of the high performance embedded systems of tomorrow.

Current scenario

The Indian semiconductor and embedded design industry has revenues to the

tune of $ 3.3 billion (2005) and employs nearly 75,000 people. This is expected

to increase to revenues of $43 billion in 2015 with employment projections of

7,80,000 plus in 2015. The semiconductor sector encompasses VLSI design,

hardware/board design and embedded software development, offered by both captive

and non-captive companies across India.

Today, the tremendous success of the Indian IT industry has built the image

of the country as a hub for technological innovations. The pool of talent

available in the country, improvements in infrastructure along with a huge

domestic market have created a friendly environment for the product level

designs to be addressed from India.

Most of the large global companies have design and development centers in

India. We can broadly classify the companies addressing the embedded systems

area in India, as follows:

- System Design companies

- IP, content providers

- EDA/Tool companies

- Design Services companies\

- Multi-national product companies

The eco system for the entire product development is currently in place in

India with the exception of large scale manufacturing facilities which are now

just coming up, especially in the EMS space. Companies aspiring to be successful

in the embedded space will have to address the skill, knowledge and re-use

dimensions apart from sustained investments and alignment with right partners.

The capabilities extend to complex ASIC/SoC design and verification, Silicon IP

development, board design capabilities, vast experience in embedded software

development and strong system level design and testing capabilities. The

investments in state-of-the-art tools, equipment and methodologies are also

substantial.

Undoubtedly, the embedded market in India is one of the rapidly growing

segments in the Indian semiconductor industry. Some of the verticals, which are

growing, include interactive clients (embedded terminals), retail, industrial

equipment, medical imaging and communications. In addition, several design

services companies are involved in embedded hardware and software development,

typically for overseas customers.

In the interactive-client segment, there is a trend towards increased

connectivity and rich graphics. A point-of-sale terminal (POS) is a great

example of this. The latest POS devices incorporate dual-display (for

advertising) and are increasingly connected to a central server for remote

configuration and accounting management.

Emerging market

Embedded products are flooding our lives with many non-PC devices. We come

across them everyday, in home-appliances, phones, toys, entertainment systems,

printers etc. These can mostly be classified under first generation systems.

However, a new wave is emerging with the advent of the all-pervasive

Internet. The Internet is proliferating extensively into our homes and is

responsible for bringing about the convergence of various technologies. The

complexities of designs are consistently moving up, since the needs of the

consumers have gone way above because of the Internet. People want access to

information all the time, even when they are on the move. So, the new-generation

embedded products should have the ability to connect to the Internet or at least

a local communication network. Otherwise, there is a risk of such an embedded

product becoming outdated in the market, very soon.

Three important aspects dominate the next-generation embedded products. Early

introduction of products will help in achieving profits in a quicker manner, in

this competitive market. Secondly, the product has to be priced right, so as to

attract customers. This one is a major factor. Thirdly, people tend to choose

products that are rich in features, even though they may not use all those

features. A rich feature-set increases the chances of hitting the right chords

in the customer. It becomes important to create strong differentiators.

Designers should consider the real world constraints like physical size,

component/manufacturing costs etc, very early in the design cycle. Let us look

at some of the considerations that one would have to think in this scenario.

b>The evolution

Until a few years ago, the requirements of typical embedded systems lagged

behind that of the PC, by a generation. However, embedded designers, today, are

looking to use latest technology in system design. A great example of this is

the medical segment where developers are implementing medical imaging devices,

based on the latest micro-architecture.

Another trend that is being increasingly seen is the migration into dual-core

platforms, in several market segments. For example, in an industrial

environment, a chip with multiple independent processors can dedicate one core

to running a robot under a real-time operating system, while the second core

runs enterprise applications. Thus, essential control isn't starved for

processing cycles or memory. These market segments are rapidly adopting

state-of-the-art processor and chipset technology.

Chipmakers, like Intel and TI, are actively driving the next generation of

embedded platforms and their scaleable embedded product roadmap offers multiple

options to embedded developers and customers, for scaling up and down, the

performance curve, while preserving their software investment.

Today, an important element of the India embedded landscape are the design

services companies. These companies typically develop embedded hardware and

software design, for overseas customers. They tend to focus on the latest

embedded market segments, such as in-vehicle infotainment, digital security and

surveillance, as well as, developing platforms on the latest technologies. They

are increasingly tying up with EMS companies to deliver a complete product

solution.

A key focus area for local developers is in-vehicle infotainment. Today,

vehicle buyers overseas are increasingly demanding access to their multimedia

content and productivity applications in their cars. Hence, automobile

manufacturers have to provide integrated services for driver and passenger

entertainment, driver assistance, productivity applications and connectivity.

Automakers are increasingly turning towards Indian design houses to develop

applications for in-car computing. Platforms based on Embedded IA offer the

optimum combination of performance and features for the rugged conditions of a

motor vehicle.

Another important trend is the emergence of the channel partners in the

embedded market in India. These are system integrators and assemblers, who are

now looking at the embedded market as a new growth opportunity. The channel

tends to typically focus on embedded terminals used in education, banking and

financial services, as well as, POS for retail—and they work either

independently or as third party partners for global players.

Today, medical imaging is a growing market segment in India. Developers are

working on the latest ultrasound, MRI and diagnostic devices, for both local and

overseas markets. These devices require speed, high-resolution imagery,

reconstruction capability and very high bandwidth. Reconstruction algorithms

especially require a tremendous amount of processing power, such as dual-core

embedded processors, which are widely adopted in this segment.

Role of software

The teams that work in embedded software development (such as Intel or TI or

Indian software houses Wipro, HCL Technologies, MindTree or Tata Elxsi) have a

significant amount of domain knowledge required to build the product, as well

as, they have also a very good understanding of the key tools, emerging trends,

standards and methodologies that are required to build the product right.

Building a successful embedded product in the given timelines requires teams

that are well-versed with the latest technologies in this domain. If they are

asked to build a next generation phone by a customer who is trying to enter this

market, they should be able to suggest to them what processor/SoC is best suited

for the model they plan, what is the right development environment which works

seamlessly with that processor or SoC; or what type of debugging support is

available on those platforms.

The level of optimization provided by compilers, the vendor choice for Real

Time Operating System for the phone, communication protocols or any other phone

middleware, media players, multimedia codecs and best ways to design the user

interface are even more critical in the embedded software world. These technical

specialists spend a lot of time in tracking these trends worldwide and are able

to help their customers to reach decisions faster and to implement those

decisions.

Today, there is growing importance given to each of the different software

pieces required to build any embedded device. With a plethora of choice

available from a semiconductor perspective, especially the processors and SoCs,

very often, the availability of the right software components, such as

compilers, development environments, RTOS, codecs, middleware and UI components

ported to that platform (and known to work), decide the success of processors or

SoCs. This is the reason why a lot of semiconductor companies are today

investing in a significant amount of software development. The software

components are enablers for silicon sales.

Software companies work with a lot of semiconductor organizations in

developing the enabling layers of software that help them achieve their market

penetration goals. They also partner with some of the software/middleware

vendors to develop expertise on their offerings so that their knowledge is

up-to-date at all times. With more and more complex devices such as dual core

and quad core chips becoming common, the role of software becomes crucial in

getting the best performance out of the entire system.'

Incidentally, Wind River Systems had unveiled a device software optimization

(DSO) product line at its worldwide annual user conference last year. The

software is expected to 'cover activities that come into play after a device has

been deployed; this includes diagnostics, updates and the managed remote

services capabilities of devices.

Software development

A good embedded professional should have a very good appreciation of how the

underlying hardware works, the bus structures, the memory organization, the

various devices and how they share the system resources, and several other finer

details. This is what enables them to really develop compact systems, and more

importantly decides the productivity that can be achieved during the development

phase of the product.

One should also have a very good understanding of the different tools

available such as logic analyzers, debugging setups utilizing the JTAG based

in-circuit emulators. In some cases they also utilize even more advanced tools

such as virtual platforms to do a lot of co-development of the embedded software

when the actual hardware platform is not yet ready. Organizations working in

this domain have to be cognizant of this and work towards developing their

engineering staff in these areas.

For example, Wipro's Embedded Foundation competency group works towards

building all these essential skills in their engineers by way of graded courses,

workshops and online content. Starting from the fresh recruits, these programs

help to grow their skill level step by step. They have made a large investment

in the Embedded Foundation competency group by having their senior architects

driving these competency development initiatives. They bring their actual

product development experience, the challenges and their learning in overcoming

them, and share it with junior engineers which helps them to become more

productive in an accelerated fashion.

The way to go

Internet or network enabled embedded products will become an essential part

of our lives in the near future. Time to market, cost and features will

determine the success of an embedded product. Hardware and software would have

to be developed concurrently. Creating the right ecosystem, for an efficient

design chain and ensuring success of a product, is an important consideration.

The opportunities available in this space are vast. Technologies like digital

consumer, set-top boxes, mobile devices, wearable computers, network systems and

entertainment devices are poised for big growth. It is necessary to develop good

skills in ASIC/SoC designs using an EDA approach, mixed signal design, high

frequency board design techniques, low level software design, programming in

assembly language and thorough knowledge in an RTOS.

Undoubtedly, India is emerging as a major hub for embedded systems design and

the way ahead is much wider and clearer.