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3
CORE THE OF EMBEDDED SYSTEM

Unit Structure
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Core of embedded systems
6.2.1 General purpose and domain specific processor.
6.2.1.1 Microprocessors
6.2.1.2 Microcontrollers.
6.2.1.3 Digital signal processors
6.2.2 Application Specific Integrated Circuits. (ASIC)
6.2.3 Programmable logic devices(PLD’s)
6.2.4 Commercial off-the-shelf components(COTs)
6.3 Sensors & Actuators
6.4 Communication Interface
6.5 Review Questions
6.6 References & Further Reading

3.0 OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter you will be able to:

Understand the different types of core i.e processor
Understand difference between microprocessor &
microcontroller
Understand the classification of processors based on Bus
Architecture, Instruction set Architecture and Endianness.
Have an overview of processors from most simple and
cheap to most expensive and complex, powerful
Understand what are sensors and actuators, communication
interfaces

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The first two chapters attempted on explain what an

embedded system is about and what the working parts are. This
chapter attempts to go deeper and explain the core of embedded
system along with other related topics.
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3.2 CORE OF EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Embedded systems are domain and application specific

and are built around a central core. The core of the embedded
system falls into any of the following categories:

1. General purpose and Domain Specific Processors

1.1. Microprocessors
1.2. Microcontrollers
1.3. Digital Signal Processors
2. Application Specific Integrated Circuits. (ASIC)
3. Programmable logic devices(PLD’s)
4. Commercial off-the-shelf components (COTs)

3.2.1 GENERAL PURPOSE AND DOMAIN SPECIFIC

PROCESSOR.

• Almost 80% of the embedded systems are processor/

controller based.

• The processor may be microprocessor or a microcontroller

or digital signal processor, depending on the domain and
application.

3.2.1.1 MICROPROCESSORS
A microprocessor is a silicon chip representing a central
processing unit.

A microprocessor is a dependent unit and it requires the

combination of other hardware like memory, timer unit, and
interrupt controller, etc. for proper functioning.

Developers of microprocessors.
Intel – Intel 4004 – November 1971(4-bit).
Intel – Intel 4040.
Intel – Intel 8008 – April 1972.
Intel – Intel 8080 – April 1974(8-bit).
Motorola – Motorola 6800.
Intel – Intel 8085 – 1976.
Zilog - Z80 – July 1976.

Architectures used for processor design are Harvard or Von-

Neumann.
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Harvard architecture Von-Neumann architecture

It has separate buses for It shares single common bus
instruction as well as data for instruction and data
fetching. fetching.

Easier to pipeline, so high Low performance as

performance can be achieve. compared to Harvard
architecture.
Comparatively high cost. It is cheaper.
Since data memory and Accidental corruption of
program memory are stored program memory may occur if
physically in different locations, data memory and program
no chances exist for accidental memory are stored physically
corruption of program memory. in the same chip,

RISC and CISC are the two common Instruction Set

Architectures (ISA) available for processor design.

RISC CISC
Reduced Instruction Set Complex Instruction Set
Computing Computing
It contains lesser number of It contains greater number of
instructions. instructions.
Instruction pipelining and Instruction pipelining feature
increased execution speed. does not exist.
Orthogonal instruction Non-orthogonal set(all
set(allows each instruction to instructions are not allowed to
operate on any register and operate on any register and
use any addressing mode. use any addressing mode.
Operations are performed on Operations are performed
registers only, only memory either on registers or memory
operations are load and store. depending on instruction.
A larger number of registers The number of general
are available. purpose registers are very
limited.
Programmer needs to write Instructions are like
more code to execute a task macros in C language. A
since instructions are simpler programmer can achieve the
ones. desired functionality with a
single instruction which in turn
provides the effect of using
more simpler single
instruction in RISC.

It is single, fixed length It is variable length

instruction. instruction.
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Less silicon usage and pin More silicon usage since

count. more additional decoder logic
is required to implement the
complex instruction decoding.

With Harvard Architecture. Can be Harvard or Von-

Neumann Architecture.

Endiannes
Endianness specifies the order which the data is stored in
the memory by processor operations in a multi byte system.

Based on Endiannes processors can be of two types:

1. Little Endian Processors
2. Big Endian Processors

1. Little-endian means lower order data byte is stored in memory

at the lowest address and the higher order data byte at the
highest address. For e.g, 4 byte long integer Byte3, Byte2,
Byte1, Byte0 will be store in the memory as follows:

Base address+0 Byte 0 (Base address)

Base address+1 Byte 1 (Base address+1)

Base address+2 Byte 2 (Base address+2)

Base address+3 Byte 3 (Base address+3)

2. Big-endian means the higher order data byte is stored in

memory at the lowest and the lower order data byte at the
highest address. For e.g. a 4 byte integer Byte3, Byte2, Byte1,
Byte0 will be stored in the memory as follows:
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Base address+0 Byte 3 (Base address)

Base address+1 Byte 2 (Base address+1)

Base address+2 Byte 1 (Base address+2)

Base address+3 Byte 0 (Base address+3)

3.2.1.2 MICROCONTROLLERS.

A microcontroller is a highly integrated chip that contains a

CPU, scratch pad RAM, special and general purpose
register arrays,on chip ROM/FLASH memory for program
storage , timer and interrupt control units and dedicated I/O
ports.

Texas Instrument’s TMS 1000 Is considered as the world’s

first microcontroller.

Some embedded system application require only 8 bit

controllers whereas some requiring superior performance
and computational needs demand 16/32 bit controllers.

The instruction set of a microcontroller can be RISC or

CISC.

Microcontrollers are designed for either general purpose

application requirement or domain specific application
requirement.

3.2.1.3 Digital Signal Processors

DSP are powerful special purpose 8/16/32 bit

microprocessor designed to meet the computational
demands and power constraints of today’s embedded
audio, video and communication applications.

DSP are 2 to 3 times faster than general purpose

microprocessors in signal processing applications. This is
because of the architectural difference between DSP and
general purpose microprocessors.
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DSPs implement algorithms in hardware which speeds

up the execution whereas general purpose processor
implement the algorithm in software and the speed of
execution depends primarily on the clock for the
processors.

DSP includes following key units:

i. Program memory: It is a memory for storing the program
required by DSP to process the data.

ii. Data memory: It is a working memory for storing

temporary variables and data/signal to be processed.

iii. Computational engine: It performs the signal processing

in accordance with the stored program memory
computational engine incorporated many specialized
arithmetic units and each of them operates simultaneously
to increase the execution speed. It also includes multiple
hardware shifters for shifting operands and saves
execution time.

iv. I/O unit: It acts as an interface between the outside world

and DSP. It is responsible for capturing signals to be
processed and delivering the processed signals.

Examples: Audio video signal processing,

telecommunication and multimedia applications.

SOP(Sum of Products) calculation, convolution,

FFT(Fast Fourier Transform), DFT(Discrete Fourier
Transform), etc are some of the operation performed by
DSP.

3.2.2 Application Specific Integrated Circuits. (ASIC)

ASICs is a microchip design to perform a specific and
unique applications.

Because of using single chip for integrates several

functions there by reduces the system development cost.

Most of the ASICs are proprietary (which having some

trade name) products, it is referred as Application
Specific Standard Products(ASSP).

As a single chip ASIC consumes a very small area in the

total system. Thereby helps in the design of smaller
system with high capabilities or functionalities.
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The developers of such chips may not be interested in

revealing the internal detail of it .

3.2.3 Programmable logic devices(PLD’s)

A PLD is an electronic component. It used to build digital
circuits which are reconfigurable.

A logic gate has a fixed function but a PLD does not have a
defined function at the time of manufacture.

PLDs offer customers a wide range of logic capacity,

features, speed, voltage characteristics.

PLDs can be reconfigured to perform any number of

functions at any time.

A variety of tools are available for the designers of PLDs

which are inexpensive and help to develop, simulate and
test the designs.

PLDs having following two major types.

1) CPLD(Complex Programmable Logic Device):

CPLDs offer much smaller amount of logic up to 1000
gates.

2) FPGAs(Field Programmable Gate Arrays):

It offers highest amount of performance as well as
highest logic density, the most features.

Advantages of PLDs :-
1) PLDs offer customer much more flexibility during the
design cycle.

2) PLDs do not require long lead times for prototypes or

production parts because PLDs are already on a
distributors shelf and ready for shipment.

3) PLDs can be reprogrammed even after a piece of

equipment is shipped to a customer

3.2.4 Commercial off-the-shelf components(COTs)

1) A Commercial off the Shelf product is one which is used ’as-
is’.

2) The COTS components itself may be develop around a

general purpose or domain specific processor or an ASICs
or a PLDs.
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3) The major advantage of using COTS is that they are readily

available in the market, are chip and a developer can cut
down his/her development time to a great extent

4) The major drawback of using COTS components in

embedded design is that the manufacturer of the COTS
component may withdraw the product or discontinue the
production of the COTS at any time if rapid change in
technology occurs.

5) Advantages of COTS:
1) Ready to use
2) Easy to integrate
3) Reduces development time

6) Disadvantages of COTS:
1) No operational or manufacturing standard (all
proprietary)

2) Vendor or manufacturer may discontinue production

of a particular COTS product

3.3 SENSORS & ACTUATORS

Sensor
A Sensor is used for taking Input
It is a transducer that converts energy from one form to
another for any measurement or control purpose
Ex. A Temperature sensor

Actuator
Actuator is used for output.
It is a transducer that may be either mechanical or electrical
which converts signals to corresponding physical actions.
Ex. LED (Light Emitting Diode)
LED is a p-n junction diode and contains a CATHODE and
ANODE
For functioning the anode is connected to +ve end of power
supply and cathode is connected to –ve end of power
supply.
The maximum current flowing through the LED is limited by
connecting a RESISTOR in series between the power supply
and LED as shown in the figure below
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There are two ways to interface an LED to a

microprocessor/microcontroller:

1. The Anode of LED is connected to the port pin and

cathode to Ground : In this approach the port pin sources
the current to the LED when it is at logic high(ie. 1).

2. The Cathode of LED is connected to the port pin and

Anode to Vcc : In this approach the port pin sources the
current to the LED when it is at logic high (ie. 1). Here
the port pin sinks the current and the LED is turned ON
when the port pin is at Logic low (ie. 0)

3.4 COMMUNICATION INTERFACES

For any embedded system, the communication interfaces can

broadly classified into:

1. Onboard Communication Interfaces

These are used for internal communication of the embedded
system i.e: communication between different components
present on the system.

Common examples of onboard interfaces are:

Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C)
Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)
Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART)
1-Wire Interface
Parallel Interface

Example :Inter Integrated Circuit (I2C)

• It is synchronous
• Bi-directional, half duplex , two wire serial interface bus
• Developed by Phillips semiconductors in 1980
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• It comprises of two buses :

1. Serial clock –SCL
2. Serial Data – SDA
• SCL generates synchronization clock pulses
• SDA transmits data serially across devices
• I2C is a shared bus system to which many devices can
be connected
• Devices connected by I2C can act as either master or
slave
• The master device is responsible for controlling
communication by initiating/ terminating data transfer.
• Devices acting as slave wait for commands from the
master and respond to those commands.

Figure: I2C Bus Interfacing

2. External or Peripheral Communication Interfaces

These are used for external communication of the
embedded system i.e: communication of different
components present on the system with external or
peripheral components/devices.

Common examples of external interfaces are:

RS-232 C & RS-485
Universal Serial Bus (USB)
IEEE 1394 (Firewire)
Infrared (IrDA)
Bluetooth
Wi-Fi
Zig Bee
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
Example: RS-232 C & RS-485
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It is wired, asynchronous, serial, full duplex

communication
RS 232 interface was developed by EIA (Electronic
Industries Associates) In early 1960s
RS 232 is the extension to UART for external
communications
RS-232 logic levels use:
+3 to +25 volts to signify a "Space" (Logic 0) and
-3 to -25 volts to signify a "Mark" (logic 1).
RS 232 supports two different types of connectors :
DB 9 and DB 25 as shown in figure below

RS 232 interface is a point to point communication

interface and the devices involved are called as Data
Terminating Equipment (DTE) And Data Communications
Terminating Equipment (DCE)
Embedded devices contain UART for serial transmission
and generate signal levels as per TTL/CMOS logic.
A level translator IC (like Max 232) is used for converting
the signal lines from UART to RS 232 signal lines for
communication.
The vice versa is performed on the receiving side.
Converter chips contain converters for both transmitters
and receivers
RS 232 is used only for point to point connections
It is susceptible to noise and hence is limited to short
distances only
RS 422 is another serial interface from EIA.
It supports multipoint connections with 1 transmitter and
10 receivers.
It supports data rates up to 100Kbps and distance up to
400 ft
RS 485 is enhanced version of RS 422 and supports up
to 32 transmitters and 32 receivers

3.5 REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What do you mean by core of the embedded system? What is

its significance? What are the possible options that can be used
as a core?
2. Distinguish between Microprocessor & Microcontroller
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3. Explain the different types of processors according to their

system bus architecture
4. Explain the different types of processors according to Instruction
set Architecture
5. Explain the different types of processors according to
Endianness
6. Write short note on :
i. DSP
ii. PLD
iii. ASIC
iv. COTS
7. Explain Communication Interfaces with respect to embedded
system
8. Explain the following with example:
1. Onboard communication interface
2. Peripheral communication interface
9. Find out information and write case studies on the following
communication interfaces:
i. Infrared
ii. WiFi
iii. Zigbee
iv. UART

3.6 REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

2. Programming Embedded systems in C++ by Michael Barr

2. Introduction to Embedded systems – Shibu K. V