Carrier of division of labor and cooperation in semiconductor industry
Embedded development board isSemiconductor industryCooperativecarrierFor one thing, it provides manufacturers developing products with basic underlying hardware, systems, drivers and other resources, so that users do not need to invest manpower and time to complete these underlying tasks.
Chinese name
Embedded development board
Properties
Carrier of division of labor and cooperation in semiconductor industry
Purpose
Provide basic hardware, system, driver and other resources
Development trend
Networking, simplification, etc
Features
Provide physical hardware and software services
Industry situation
Huge development space to accelerate the listing of downstream businesses
1. Embedded development is a system engineering, which requires embedded system manufacturers not only to provide embedded software and hardware systems themselves, but also to provide powerfulHardware developmentTools and software package support.Many manufacturers take this into full consideration and promote the development environment as a key point while promoting the system.For example, Samsung and ARM also provide development boards and board level support packages (BSPs) while promoting Arm7 and Arm9 chips.
2. With the maturity of Internet technology and the improvement of bandwidth, the requirements of networking and informatization have made the functions of single function devices such as telephones, mobile phones, refrigerators, microwave ovens and so on no longer simple, and their structures are more complex.This requires chip design manufacturers to integrate more functions on the chip. In order to meet the upgrade of application functions, designers, on the one hand, adopt more powerfulEmbedded processorFor example, 32-bit and 64 bit RISC chips or signal processor DSP enhance processing capability and add functional interfaces.
3、Network interconnectionIt has become an inevitable trend.FutureEmbedded deviceTo adaptNetwork developmentThe hardware must provide various network communication interfaces.The traditional MCU is not enough for network support, while the new generation of embedded processors have begun to embed network interfaces, in addition to supportingTCP/IP protocolOthers support IEEE1394, USB, CAN, Bluetooth or IrDAcommunication interfaceOne or more of, and corresponding communication networking protocol software andphysical layerDrive software.Software systemkernelIt supports the network module, and can even embed a Web browser on the device, so that you can really use various devices to access the Internet at any time and anywhere.
4. Simplify the system core and algorithm, and reduce power consumption and software and hardware costs.FutureEmbedded productsIt is a device closely integrated with software and hardware. In order to reduce power consumption and cost, designers need to reduce the system kernel as much as possible, keep only the software and hardware closely related to the system functions, and use the lowest resources to achieve the most appropriate functions. This requires designers to select the best programming model and constantly improve algorithms to optimizecompilerPerformance.Therefore, it is not only necessary for software personnel to have rich hardware knowledge, but also to develop advanced embedded software technologies, such as Java, Web and WAP.
5. Provide a friendly multimedia human-computer interface The embedded device can be in close contact with users. The most important factor is that it can provide a very friendly user interface.Image interface and flexible control mode make people feelEmbedded deviceLike a familiar old friend.This requirement makes embedded software designers have to work hard on graphical interface and multimedia technology.Handwritten text input, voice dial-up Internet access, email sending and receiving, and color graphics and images will all enable users to feel free.Some advanced PDAs have realized Chinese character writing and SMS voice publishing on the display screen, but general embedded devices still have a long way to go.
6. For enterprise specific solutions, such as logistics management, barcode scanning, mobile information collection, etc., this small handheld embedded system will play a huge role.In the field of automatic control, it can not only be used for ATM machines,vending machine, industrial control and other special equipment, combined with mobile communication equipment, GPS, entertainment, embedded systems can also play a huge role.
7. In the field of radio and television, the United States has begun toanalog televisionThe DVB (Digital Television Broadcasting) technology in Europe has been promoted in most countries in the world.Digital audioDAB has also entered the commercial trial stage.And software, integrated circuits and new components play an increasingly important role in industrial development.All of the above products are inseparable from embedded system technology.Like Venus, whose future is immeasurable, plans to produce set-top boxes, the core technology is to use embedded technology at the chip level of more than 32 bits.
Function
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Embedded development board, conceptually, is very similar to software outsourcing (software outsourcing refers to that software outsourcing providers contract all or part of their software projects to appropriate software enterprises to complete in order to concentrate on core competitive businesses, reduce project costs, and improve the quality of project implementation).imageEmbedded productsHardware, boot codeDriver、file system, protocol layer and basic application software are the common and universal parts of electronic products, not the key technologies that can form differentiation. In this era of division of labor and cooperation, if the workload of this part is relatively large or the manufacturer does not have relevant developers, it can choose a third party to complete the software development work,Accelerate the process of product research and development, realize the rapid listing of products, and seize the market opportunity.
Then, as the developer, when selecting the development board, the developer actually selects not only a hardware board, source code and other resources provided by the development board, but also a partner, a partner providing software and hardware services for users.Similar to the cooperation mode of software outsourcing, the cooperation between users and suppliers is more software cooperation, which requires full communication between users and suppliers according to the specific needs of products, and suppliers need to constantly call personnel to cooperate according to the needs of users.For example, most of the problems we encounter in the process of supporting customers to develop products, such as changing the file system, serial port testing, and replacing 64M Flash with 128M Flash, are solved through software, which forms a highly interactive after-sales support for suppliers in the embedded industry and customer research and development.
In other words, the embedded development board is the carrier of user software outsourcing. Compared with the traditional software outsourcing business, the development board can actually provide users with both physical hardware and software services.
In the embedded industry, in addition to embedded development boards, the forms of outsourcing also tend to be diversified. Users can put forward customization requirements to suppliers according to their own product needs, and suppliers provide hardware design, driver migration and other services;It is possible that the electronic manufacturers will design their own hardware, and the embedded system manufacturers will help them complete the system migration and drive improvement.From the perspective of the role of the industry chain, embedded system manufacturers can adopt flexible service modes, use their own technical advantages to help electronic product manufacturers shorten product development cycles, save investment in design resources, and promote the rapid development of electronic product manufacturers.
Shopping suggestions
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With the function and function of embedded development board as the starting point, the selection of embedded development board should be comprehensively considered from the following three aspects:
（1） The hardware design of the development board is to basically copy the reference design of semiconductor manufacturers, or fully consider the production and marketing of domestic manufacturers.
Semiconductor manufacturers focus on chip design, and their investment in reference design will not be as professional as that of development board manufacturers.When engineers from foreign chip manufacturers make reference designs, they are accustomed to using peripheral chips that are used more in their own countries.In this way, the reference design of semiconductor manufacturers has limited reference value for domestic manufacturers.
Therefore, when selecting development boards, whether for the performance and function of the final product or for the convenience of manufacturing and production in the later period, users must be careful to compare whether the development boards provided by suppliers are more suitable for their own product development and production.
（2） Whether the software of the development board supports perfection and supports all hardware interfaces on all development boards.
The value of the development board lies in that it can save the user's investment in systems, drivers, etc., and focus on the development of upper software that makes products different.If the development board and board level hardware interface provided by the supplier are not supported by the corresponding software driver, the user's development progress will be affected.When you purchase a development board, you must make sure that all hardware interfaces have corresponding drivers, and that the development board can be used for development immediately after you get it.
（3） How strong is the supplier's technical support.
Embedded industry is a highly interactive industry of customer R&D and after-sales support. The technical support of suppliers will sometimes become a key factor in the launch of users' products. In terms of technical support capabilities of suppliers, we must carefully examine them.
An effective way to check whether a supplier can provide adequate support is to go to the company's technical support forum.On the forum, users posted questions about whether they could get timely responses.Companies without professional support teams cannot provide timely support to users.Users posted queries on the forum. Some manufacturers only gave users a reply within a month, and some did not even answer.
Whether a development board company can provide complete technical support is an important criterion for whether it is a professional development board company, whether it can play a connecting role in the industrial chain, and whether it can create value for users.In fact, this truth should be very simple. The threshold for development board manufacturers is not high. As long as they have hardware design capabilities and refer to the reference design of semiconductor manufacturers, they can launch development board products.If they are unable to provide users with technical support, such manufacturers can only provide users with one hardware board. Even if there are more than 2000 boards on the market, if they are non professional manufacturers, the profits they get are high, because the costs of these manufacturers are only the hardware costs and sales costs of development boards;Professional development board companies need to share the R&D costs, after-sales support costs, operating costs and sales costs. Non professional companies may not have high profits. The reason why there is such a big price difference in the market price of development boards can also be seen.
In short, when users purchase development boards, they choose partners who provide services for themselves rather than development boards.The price of the development board is the embodiment of the company's service value, so many consumption ideas of pursuing the lowest price development board are biased.You must be careful when choosing a development board or a company that serves you.In the semiconductor industry, development board manufacturers are the chain connecting upstream and downstream manufacturers.The chain of high quality can quickly send users to the Golden Avenue of new products to promote the virtuous circle of the market;The inferior chain will be overtaken by the competitors when the chain falls off at the critical moment and users need to repair it. The best product creativity will gradually lose its value.
Industry situation
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The prototype of embedded development board can be said to be the reference design provided by major chip manufacturers to users when they launch chips.Normally, when semiconductor manufacturers promote their own chips, it is not attractive to just show them to users. They must show users specific circuit boards, specific interfaces, and give customers a specific impression to ensure the promotion effect;Semiconductor manufacturers provide these reference designs, which is also a reference for users to design and accelerate the progress of their product design and marketing.
Whether 8-bit or 16 bitsinglechip, or 32-bit can run the operating systemEmbedded processorSemiconductor manufacturers have such reference designs.Correspondingly, there are many manufacturers providing development boards to users on the market.
Embedded processors are constantly innovating, and early Motorola Semiconductor (now Freescale Semiconductor) 68K/Coldfire andPowerPC processorHas gone forever. ARM, Coldfire, PowerPC and ADSP are also based on MIPS, X86ArchitectureThe embedded processors of the semiconductor industry are in full bloom, and processor manufacturers and processor architecture manufacturers show their own ingenuity. The upstream enterprises in the semiconductor industry provide a good opportunity for the emergence and growth of development board manufacturers.
Especially at the end of 2002 and in 2003,ARM systemThe popularity of the structure in China has brought an east wind to many people who want to start businesses based on their own embedded technology.Almost every provincial city in the north and south of the Yangtze River will have development board manufacturers.During this period and later, the companies that entered the industry have a common feature that the products are basically based onARM processorDevelopment, orsimulator Class.These manufacturers can provide users with development boards with different interface functions. On the whole, they can provide services for electronic product manufacturers and accelerate the listing of products of downstream manufacturers in the semiconductor industry chain.[1]
Hardware Driver
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Most embedded hardware needs some kind of software for initialization and management.Software that directly interacts with and controls a piece of hardware is called a deviceDriver（device driver）。All embedded systems that need softwaresystems softwareAll layers needDevice DriverSoftware.Device drivers are software libraries for initializing hardware. They manage the access of high-level software to hardware. They are hardware and operating system, middleware andapplication layerThe link between them.Specifically, such drivers include functional drivers specific to the main processor architecturestorageandMemory managementDriver, bus initialization and transaction driver, as well as I/O initialization and control driver of circuit board layer and main CPU layer (such as for network, graphics, input device, storage device, debugging I/O, etc.).Device drivers are generally divided into architecture specific device drivers and generic device drivers.Architecturespecial equipmentDriver ManagementHardware embedded in the main processor (architecture).Architecture specificDriverIt is responsible for initializing the components inside the main processor. Specific examples of such drivers include on-chip memory, integrated memory manager (MMU) and floating point hardware drivers.The general device driver manages the hardware on the circuit board and the hardware not integrated into the main processor.A general device driver usually contains part of the source code specific to the architecture, because the main processor is the centralcontrol unit To access any component on the circuit board, the main processor is usually required.However, the general driver can also manage board level hardware that is not dedicated to a specific processor, which means that a general driver can be configured and applied to many architectures as long as the architecture contains the hardware corresponding to the driver.currencyDriverIt contains codes for initializing and managing access to the remaining main components on the circuit board, including board level buses (I2C, PCI, PCMCIA, etc.), chipsExternal memory(controller, cache above level 2, flash memory, etc.) and off chip I/O（Ethernet, RS-232, monitor, mouse, etc.).
(1) Master the mainstreamEmbedded microprocessorStructure and principle of (initially set as arm9)
(2) Must master an embedded operating system (initially defined asuclinuxOr linux, version to be determined)
(3) Must be familiar withembedded software Develop the process and do at least one embedded software project.
Benefits of engaging in embedded software development:
(1) People in this field are scarce at home and abroad.The entry threshold in this field is high, so it is difficult for non professional IT personnel to enter this field;On the other hand, because this field is relatively new and develops too fast, most people have unconditional contact with it.
(2) Unlike application software such as enterprise computing, the work intensity of talents in embedded field is usually lower (but their income is not low).
(3) If you want to start a business one day and make your own products, embedded software is not as easy to be pirated as application software.Hardware design is generally customized by other companies (this is called "OEM": OEM). It is universal hardware. We just design software and become our own products.
(4) This is the main interest.
Disadvantages of embedded software development:
(1) The entry point is high, and the technology used is often difficult. If the software and hardware foundation is not good, especially the operating system level software foundation is not deep, it may not be suitable for this trip.
(2) The number of enterprises in this area is far less than that of enterprise computing enterprises.
(3) A few companies often require people with master's degree or above to engage in embedded, mainly based on the difficulty of embedded.But most companies have no such requirement, as long as they have experience.
(4) Strong platform support, it's hard to change the platform.[2]
