Embedded Systems

A perspective from the industry

(c) Nirav Patel

Microcontroller Basics

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Microcontroller Basics
RAM
Memory
Flash

USART
Communication
SPI
uC Core (CPU)
GPIO (set as
input)
Inputs
ADC

PWM (via
Timers)
Outputs
GPIO (set as 3/
output)
Microcontroller Basics

1. How to get detailed information about a controller?

2. General points of comparison for controllers

a. Peripheral features like timers, UART, I2C, SPI etc.
b. Power consumption
c. Memory size (Flash and RAM)
d. Physical Size
e. Operating frequency

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Microcontroller Basics

Questions

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Agenda
1. Device drivers
2. Interrupts
3. Timing Analysis
4. Embedded Development tools

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Device Driver Programming
Device Driver Programming
1. Driver acts as an interface between
Application the hardware and user application
software

Driver
2. Eliminates the application’s need to
know about the specifics of the
hardware.

Hardware (I/O, Uart, etc.) 3. Enables the application to be portable

across hardware platforms
Device Driver Programming
1. In this architecture, a device driver is
Application Task 1 Application Task 2 used by multiple tasks within the
application

2. For instance, serial communication

Driver can be used by multiple tasks in order
to transmit and receive data

3. Driver helps timeshare a single

Hardware (I/O, Uart, etc.)
hardware resource across multiple
tasks.
Device Driver Programming

Let’s look at an example!

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Device Driver Programming
Application
User Driver
Hardware 1 driver Hardware 2 driver
Hardware Platform 1 Hardware Platform 2
1. This architecture is an example of an
application compatible to run on
multiple hardware platforms
2. Newer and older generations of a
phone running the same OS is a
classic example.
3. An additional layer of abstraction
added to allow application to be
independent of hardware.
 Device Driver Programming
Application 1
Application specific abstraction
Common User Driver
1. This architecture is an example of an
Application 2
application compatible to run on
multiple hardware platforms
2. Running DOS within context of
Windows environment is an example
of this abstraction.

Hardware 1 driver Hardware 2 driver 3. The application specific abstraction

acts as a mediator between the user
Hardware Platform 1 Hardware platform 2
driver and the application in such
cases.
Device Driver Programming
1. Let’s look at an example of a serial
Application communications driver

2. DLL responsible for error free transmit

Protocol Layer and receive operations.

3. Protocol layer responsible for

DLL (data link layer) interpreting received data and passing
it to the application

Hardware (I/O, Uart, etc.) 4. Protocol layer also collects data from
an application and transmits it
Device Driver Programming

1. Review the reference manual for the hardware.

2. Understand the underlying features and quirks of the hardware.

3. Most microcontroller manufacturers provide HAL drivers.

Device Driver Programming

Considerations:

1. Portability of your application across hardware platforms

2. Portability of your driver across applications.

Device Driver Programming

Questions

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Interrupts Basic

1. What is an interrupt?

2. Interrupt Vs. Polling

3. Advantages of using interrupts.

Interrupts
Finish current instruction
Interrupt
execution

Save current context

Processor (push local variables to stack,
save program counter etc.)

Execute program
Switch context to execute
Interrupt Service Routine (ISR)

Load previous context state

from the stack
Interrupts Vs. Polling

1. Efficient way to handle asynchronous events

2. Saves CPU execution cycles

3. Faster execution for time sensitive processing

4. Reduces chances of an event being missed

Interrupts - Considerations

1. Need good understanding of the hardware

2. Need to consider memory usage during interrupts – has the

potential to cause memory corruption.

3. Debugging becomes slightly difficult

4. Measuring timing performance of the system becomes difficult

Interrupts

Questions

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Software Timing Analysis

1. What is timing analysis?

2. Interrupts vs. tasks – which is more critical?
3. What if timing deadlines are not met?

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Software Timing Analysis

Example 1:

Worst case Worst

Interrupt Worst case
Priority execution Deadline case end Leeway
Name start time
time time

Interrupt 1 1 10 20 5 15 5

Interrupt 2 2 5 50 15 20 30

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Software Timing Analysis

Example 2:

Worst case Worst

Interrupt Worst case
Priority execution Deadline case end Leeway
Name start time
time time

Interrupt 1 1 10 50 5 15 35

Interrupt 2 2 5 10 15 20 -10

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Software Timing Analysis

Example 3:

Worst case Worst

Interrupt Worst case
Priority execution Deadline case end Leeway
Name start time
time time

Interrupt 2 1 5 10 10 15 -5

Interrupt 1 2 5 50 15 25 25

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Software Timing Analysis

1.Measuring timing
• Using an oscilloscope or a logic analyzer
• Using special software to collect timing data

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Software Timing Analysis

1.Assumptions very crucial to this analysis

2.Other factors to be considered
–Preemptive interrupts
–Mutually exclusive interrupts
–Periodic interrupts
–Timing data collection overheads

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Software Timing Analysis

Questions

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Tools

1. Program editor - Eclipse IDE for C/C++

2. Compiler, Linker - ARM GCC Tool chain
3. Change management - Bitbucket and SourceTree
4. Unit testing - CppuTest Framework

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Tool chains

1. Who has used IDEs like AVR Studio, mikroC, Keil etc.?

2. How is machine code generated?

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Tool chains
C/C++, 1. Collection of all
Assembly source files provided
Source files (.c .cpp .s) to compiler
Target Core –
e,g, AVR, ARM 2. Compiler Interprets
Compiler
options
Compiler the source code and
Object file (*.o files) generates object files
List file (*.lst files)
Target Core –
e,g, AVR
3. Linker takes the
Linker script file Linker object code, resolves
references and
(ld, dld files)

Machine Code (*.bin, *.s19

etc.) assigns it to physical
Map file (*.map) memory
Debug-able application (*.elf)
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Tool chains
1. A debugger uses the
Executable file (*.bin, information in elf file
*.s19, *.elf etc.)
Target – e.g.
to know the source
ATMega16, STM32 code being executed
currently.
Target Debugger
programming
algorithm

Target

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Tool chains

1. Compiler – GCC, Keil C51, Keil MDK ARM compiler 6 etc.

2. Linker – GCC, Keil armlink, etc.

3. Debugging interface – OpenOCD and GDB, DS-5 for ARM

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Let’s look at an example!

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Tool chains

Questions

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Software Source Control

1. How to efficiently manage software when a large team is working

on a project?

2. How to track changes made over time to the software?

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Software Source Control

1. Source control systems track changes

2. Git is an open source tool available
3. Other paid packages built on top of Git like Atlassian’s Bitbucket
4. Git is a popular tool used tool right now
5. Ideal for college projects as well

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Software Source Control

Let’s look at an example!

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Software Source Control

Questions

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Software Unit Testing

1. Unit testing is basically testing your application software with

another software
2. Very effective for catching software issues early in the
development process
3. Helpful with validating existing features after changes are made to
the software in the future

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Software Unit Testing

1. CppUTest is a good open source framework for unit testing

2. Provides coverage report for the source code under test

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Software Unit Testing

Let’s look at an example!

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Software Unit Testing

Questions

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