embedded product development life cycle

*** Explain Embedded product development life cycle?

   
        Embedded product development life cycle is an “Analysis-Design –Implementation” based standard problem solving approach for Embedded product Development.

                     In any product development application, we consider

1.What product needs to be developed (Analysis)

2. Good approach for building it (design)

3. To develop it ( Implementation).

                     EDLC is an Analysis-Design-implementation based problem solving approach for embedded systems development.

Analysis involves understanding what product needs to be developed.

Design involves what approach to be used to build the product.

Implementation  is developing the product by realizing the design.

Need for EDLC :

1.   EDLC  is essential for understanding the scope (fesilities) and complexity of the work involved in embedded systems development.

2.   It is used for any developing embedded product.

3.   EDLC defines interaction and activities among various groups of a product development phase.     

Eg: Project management, system design

*** Discuss about objectives of EDLC 

1.   The ultimate aim of any embedded product in a commercial production setup is to produce Marginal benefit.

2.   Marginal is expressed in terms of ROI ( Return On Investment).

3.   The investment for product development includes initial investment, manpower, infra structure investment etc.

EDLC has three primary objectives :

1.   Ensuring high quality for products.

2.   Risk minimization and Defect prevention through Management.

3.   Maximize the productivity.

Ensuring high Quality for products:

             Quality in any product development is Return On Investment (ROI)  achieved by the product.

             The expenses for developing the product are

1.   Initial Investment

2.   Developer recruiting.

3.   Training

4.   Infra structure requirement.

 Risk minimization defect prevention in product development through project management

  Product development “loose” or “tight” project management.

 “project management is essential for “predictability co-ordination and risk minimization.

  Place the resources is critical and having a direct impact on investment.

Eg: Microsoft @ project Tool.

Maximize the productivity ;

        Productivity is a measure of efficiency as well as Return On Investment (ROI).

         This productivity measurement is based on total man power efficiency.

          Productivity in which, when, product is increased then investment is fall down. Saving man power.

*** Different Phases of EDLC   (OR) Discuss about different

Phases of EDLC.

NEED Phase:
The “need” may come from individual (or) from the public (or) from a company.

“Need” should be initiate the “Development Life Cycle”

“Need “ can be visualized in any one of the 3 Needs :

1. New (or) Custom product Development.

2. Product Re-engineering

3. Product Maintenance.

Conceptualization  phase:

                 It defines the scope of concept. It performs cost benefit analysis and prepare project management and risk management plans & feasibility study.

Activities in conceptualization:

1.   Feasibility study : Examine the need and suggest possible solutions.

2.   Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) : Revealing and assessing the total development cost and profit expected from the product.

3.   Product scope : Deals with the activities involved in the product to be made.

4.   Planning Activities: It requires various plans to be developed first, before development like resource planning & Risk management plans.

Analysis Phase :

              The product is defined in detailed with respect to the inputs, processes, outputs and interfaces at a functional level.

Activities in Analysis:

1.   Analysis & Documentation: It specifies the business needs of the product under development.

2.   Requirements that need to be addressed.

·        Functional capabilities like performance.

·        Operational & Non-operational quality attribute.

·        Product external interface requirements.

·        Data requirements, user manuals

·        Operational requirements.

·        Maintenance requirements

·        General assumptions.

Defining Test plan and procedures phase :

In product development there are various types of testing is performed they are

◊ Unit testing : Testing individual modules

◊ Integration Testing : Testing a group of modules for required       functionality.

◊ System Testing  : Testing functional aspects (or) functional  requirements of the product after integration.

◊ User acceptance testing :  Testing the product to meet the end user requirements.

Design phase:

          It  identifies application environment and creates an over all architecture for the product.

§  It starts with the preliminary Design.

§  It establishes the top level architecture for the product.

§  On completion it resembles a “black box” , that defines only the inputs and outputs.

§  The final product is called preliminary Design Document (PDD)

§  After PDD the end user create the “Detailed Design”.

§  The operational manual design, maintenance manual design, product Training material Design all together called the “Detailed Design Document”.

Development and Testing Phase:

            Development means designing the particular product into hardware  and software.

            Testing can be divided into independent testing of software & Hardware .

v Unit testing

v Integration testing

v System testing

v User acceptance testing

Deployment Phase:

        Deployment is the process of launching the first   

  fully functional model of the product in the market.

It is also known as first customer shipping (FCS)

 Support phase:

                The support deals with the operational & maintenance of the product in the production environment.

Activities involved in support phase

             It providing 24x7 supports for the product after launching.

Identify the areas of improvement.

 Upgrades Phase:

            Deals with the development of up grades (new version) for the product, which is already present in the market.

During the upgrade phase the system is subject to design modification in major areas.

 Retirement/Disposal;

 The retirement/disposal of the product is a gradual process.

This phase is the final phase in a product development life cycle.

 The product is declared as discontinued from the market.

 The disposal of a product is essential due to

1.   Increased user needs.

2.   Rapid technology advancement.

*** Discuss about Trends  in Embedded industry

 The trends in the embedded systems

1.Processor Trends:

    There is  a points of difference between the first generation of processor/controller and today’s processor/controller.

2. Number of IC’s per chip;

     Early processors has few number of IC/gates per chip.

                  Today’s processors with VLSI technology can pack (together) ten of thousands of IC/gates per processor.

3.Need for individual components:

                  Early processors need different components like timers, DAC/ADC separately interfaced.

                  Today’s processors have all these components on the same chip as the processor.

4. Speed of execution: 

              Early processors were slow in execution speed.

                  Today’s processor with advanced architecture support features like instruction pipeline, improving the execution speed.

 5.Clock Frequency:

    Early processors execute at few MHz.

Today’s processors are capable of execute at GHz range.

6.Application Specific Processor:

    Early systems designed available at that time.

 Today it is possible according to a product requirement.

7.Major Trends in Processor architecture in Embedded development.

System On-Chip (SOC) :

              This concept makes possible to integrate all functional systems required to build an embedded product into a single chip.

               SOC are now available for a wide variety of diverse applications as Media players, PDA etc.

                 SOC integrate multiple functional components on the same chip.

 8.Multicore processors/Chip level Multi processor:

                  This  concept specifies multiple cores on the same processor chip, operating at the same clock frequency and battery.

                   Based on the number of cores :

v Dual core-2 cores

v Tri core-3cores

v Quad core-4 cores.

Each core implements pipelining and multi threading.

 9. Reconfigurable processors:

        It is a hardware feature. Depending on the requirement, re configurable processors can change their functionality to the new requirement.

Eg: The heart of a camera, Media player.

10.Operating system Trends:

    The advancements in processor technology caused a major change in the Embedded operating System Industry.

     There are lots of options for Embedded operating System to select both commercial and open source.

       Virtualization concept is used in embedded OS industry.

 11. Development Language Trends:

       There are two aspects to Development languages w.r.to Embedded systems Development.

i.             Embedded Firmware:

     It is application to responsible for execution of Embedded System.

      It is the software to perform low level hardware interaction , memory management.

ii  Embedded Software;

       It is the software that is responsible for interfacing with the Embedded System.

        It is the user application that executes on top of the Embedded system on a Host Computer.

        Early languages available for Embedded systems development were limited, they are C  & C⁺⁺  only.

         Now  ASP,▪ NET , VB, Java are available.

12. Open Standards, Frame works and Alliances:

 Standards are necessary for ensuring inter operation.

          Open Source Standards and frame works Specific to the mobile hand set industry.

           OMA (Open Mobile Alliance)  is a standard body for creating open standards for mobile industry.

            The Goal of OMA is deliver High Quality.

            OHA (Open Handset Alliance) is a group of 84 technology and mobile companies.

 Eg: Andriod, Openmoko.

13. Bottlenecks faced by Embedded industry

 Memory performance

    The rate at which processors can process their memory speed increasing.

      Lack of Standards/conformance to Standards

      Lack of skilled Resource.