In the increasingly modernized society, the application of computers and networks has penetrated into daily life. The electronic products of various embedded systems are also everywhere. After the application of computers passes the unprecedented PC system, the embedded systems The application is in full swing, and it has entered the fields of industry, military, communications, environmental protection, electric power, railway, finance and so on. As one of the two types of computers, the special computer system, that is, the embedded system, has far surpassed the traditional general computer system in terms of the number of applications. The emergence of embedded microcontroller technology has brought a new technological revolution to the field of modern industrial control. .
The system consisting of embedded microcontrollers can be embedded in any device that needs to be controlled, and has been widely used in the field of industrial control. Embedded systems can be divided into device level (IPC), board level (single board, module), and chip level (MCU, SoC). The currently used MCU and IPC are typical embedded system applications. With the rapid development of the Internet, the network function requirements for various industrial control devices are also getting higher and higher. A large number of intelligent devices will transmit information and data to each other through the network, realizing the functional autonomy of intelligent field devices, the highly decentralized system structure, and the integration of supervision and control.
Today, in the increasingly fierce market competition of embedded systems, how to quickly put products that meet the needs into the market and maintain a place in the competition has become a common problem faced by many embedded R&D and manufacturing companies.
Therefore, it is necessary to speed up the design process to improve the quality of design. At present, the solution adopted by most companies is to use the ready-made commercial platform. Embedded devices In the development process, in addition to its processor architecture, operating system performance, and other components must be considered, developers must also understand some parts of the system need to design, which parts need to buy off-the-shelf equipment, etc. .
The general self-designed solution has the advantage of being able to fully customize the final solution and optimize costs, but any design specification changes or omissions can be costly and prolonged. Conversely, using a commercial off-the-shelf platform will increase the cost of selling the product, or it may waste unnecessary costs, but in general, off-the-shelf systems provide faster verification cycles and thus a faster design process. To ensure the quality of the design in a shorter time to market.
Below we will use two solutions for developing embedded systems - designing or using off-the-shelf platforms for comparison and discussing the technical and economic risks associated with the two solutions.
Before development, you need to choose a processor technology for the core control part of the system. At present, EVOC uses the following five technologies:
1. Microcontrollers - Microcontrollers are extremely inexpensive and typically provide an integrated solution on a single chip, including I/O peripherals. They typically have very small on-chip memory capacity and are difficult to use in applications where complexity is high and where expansion is required. In addition, its clock rate is usually on the order of 10 MHz, so high performance control loops are generally not achieved.
2. Embedded Processor - Compared to microcontrollers, embedded processors have higher clock rates and often have external storage interfaces, so performance and scalability are not a problem. But applications require complex driver development because embedded processors typically do not have on-chip analog peripherals. In addition, with the development of chip packaging technology, embedded processors usually use high-density packaging technology, such as ball-grid array (BGA), which will lead to more complicated manufacturing processes, adding more Difficult hardware debugging work.
3. Digital Signal Processor (DSP) - A DSP is a dedicated microprocessor that provides additional instructions to optimize specific mathematical functions, such as multiply and accumulate operations. DSP is extremely useful for computing heavy-duty applications, but often requires specialized knowledge to take advantage of its software capabilities.
4. The Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)-ASIC chip is designed for a specific application and is not versatile. ASIC is widely considered to be an excellent solution for solving problems such as power consumption and product cost. However, extremely expensive ASIC development and manufacturing processes are often prohibitive and are generally limited to products with significant throughput.
5. Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) - FPGA provides an excellent balance between custom ASIC design and off-the-shelf technology. They have a high degree of proprietary performance and can be reconfigured logically by programming, so their development costs are much lower compared to ASICs. Although FPGAs can be used in a variety of applications, complex FPGA designs are generally uncommon because the VHDL programming format is unfamiliar to most embedded software developers accustomed to sequential programming in C.
In many cases, a single processor technology is not enough to address the needs of the application, so hybrid architecture is gradually becoming the direction of development. As shown in Figure 1, the embedded processor is used for system management, user interface, and data analysis, while the DSP is responsible for tasks such as I/O modules and preliminary processing of data. This hybrid architecture has become very common in embedded system design.
Figure 1: The embedded processor is used for system management, user interface, and data analysis, while the DSP or FPGA is responsible for tasks such as I/O modules and preliminary processing of data.
After determining which processor technology to use, the designer also needs to complete the development of the I/O circuit. If there is any analog signal in the embedded system, then an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), digital-to-analog converter (DAC), and corresponding software drivers are required. The design of the analog circuit will also encounter many complicated problems, which are not repeated here.
Option 2: Build with EVOC EEB PowerPC Module With this solution, although it usually costs more than the cost of the board component, it can significantly shorten the time it takes for the product to enter the market. In addition, these systems have better scalability. With the advancement of processor technology, embedded systems have several different implementation technologies:
1. Non-integrated embedded systems—This system is often the most economical solution for building systems using off-the-shelf products. However, software development tools for such systems are almost never integrated, and these systems often require a variety of regulatory certifications.
2, integrated embedded system ------ In addition to the same components as non-integrated embedded systems, this system also provides technical instructions such as impact, vibration, operating temperature, and environmental certification. Often these systems are more expensive, but generally have an integrated software development environment with richer I/O options.
3. Industrial PCs - With off-the-shelf PC technology, industrial PCs offer a richer selection of development tools and I/O performance. They also have many of the same technical specifications and certifications as other integrated embedded systems, but this performance comes at the expense of cost and is more expensive than the two.
The integrated embedded system architecture based on the EVOC EEB PowerPC module is similar to the simple block diagram shown in Figure 1. It uses the Freescale PowerPC embedded processor to run VxWorks or the Linux real-time operating system. The PowerPC is connected to the DSP/FPGA via an internal 60X bus or PCI bus. The DSP/FPGA is directly connected to peripheral interfaces such as an AD acquisition chip and a digital input and output.
Figure 2: Schematic diagram of an integrated embedded system based on the EVOC EEB PowerPC module
Figure 3: EVOC EEB PowerPC Module Framework
Throughout the above two design schemes, whether technicality can play a decisive role, and simple economic analysis is very necessary. If the final profit is greater than the engineering cost investment spent in the development process, then the decision is wise. Accurately estimating the cost of a self-designed solution is not a straightforward process; if you simply add the cost of the board components to the hardware and software development time, you can only estimate the total investment cost very roughly. Other potential costs should also be considered to accurately assess the actual mission cost.
After evaluating the investment cost of the project, the formula can be used: TPC/(SUP-VCUP)=BEP (where TFC is the total fixed cost, VCUP is the unit variable cost, and BEP is the break-even point.) Simple calculation of the company's revenue and expenditure balance point. But this does not include other potential costs. However, if you choose an integrated embedded system, not only can you reduce time to market, but early profits will be used for cost optimization and feature improvement. With this approach, investment costs can be shared throughout the product lifecycle, rather than investing all of the money in the early development process.
So is there no need to design the board yourself? Of course not. For systems that have specific requirements for shape and size and have extremely high throughput, or systems that are extremely demanding, the self-designed solution will be more advantageous. For products with relatively low production, complex technology and fast time to market, the use of off-the-shelf platforms allows suppliers to afford logistics and potential costs, allowing designers to focus on highlighting technological advantages and thus leading the market.
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