Aim
The main goal of this course is to give hands-on experience in embedded systems design, using real life industrial methods, focusing on both hardware and software components. This is a natural follow up of the more theoretical course EDAF20.

Knowledge and understanding
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to explain how embedded systems are developed from idea to prototype, what is the real life practice and which practical issues can appear

• be able to describe which tools, processes and methods can be applied for industrial embedded systems

Skills and abilities
For a passing grade the student must

• be able to design, build and evaluate embedded systems of moderate complexity

• be able to specify and implement application-specific hardware and software components

• be able toidentify and adapt existing hardware and software components in order to integrate them in new designs

Contents

• Introduction, from theory to practice, the available support architecture.

• Project description: Several possible projects are briefly described. New proposals are presented by the authors.

• Requirements analysis: Extracting the important information concerning performance, real-time behaviour, and non-functional requirements.

• Design decisions: Functional partitioning and assignment, Hardware/software partitioning, protocol selection, support software selection.

• Design refinement: Peripherals, interfaces, power management.

• Implementation related issues: Compiling embedded applications, Operating system’s role, configuring FPGAs and other hardware devices.

• Testing and maintenance.

Literature
Xilinx Application Notes, http://www.xilinx.com/support/library.htm