Present situation and development trend of embedded system
First, the development status of embedded system
With the development of information, intelligence and network, embedded system technology will also get a broad space for development. The famous American futurist Negroponte predicted during his visit to China in January 1999 that embedded intelligence (computer) tools would be the greatest invention after the PC and the Internet in 4-5 years. China’s famous embedded system expert Shen Xobang published in November 1998 in the 11th National Microcomputer Academic Exchange meeting in Wuhan, “Computer development and technology”, the next 10 years based on embedded chip computer industry was scientifically described and prospected. In 1999, the output value of the world’s electronic products has exceeded $1.2 trillion, and in 2000 it reached $1.3 trillion, and it is expected that in 2005, sales will reach $1.8 trillion.
In the 1990s, embedded technology was fully developed and has now become the common development direction of communication and consumer products. In the field of communication, digital technology is completely replacing analog technology. In the field of broadcast television, the United States has begun to transition from analog television to digital television, and Europe’s DVB (digital television broadcasting) technology has been promoted in most countries around the world. Digital audio broadcasting (DAB) has also entered the commercial trial stage. 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 the unquantifiable Venus plan to produce set-top boxes, the core technology is to use more than 32-bit chip level embedded technology. In the personal field, embedded products will mainly be used by individuals as data processing and communication software for personal mobility. Because embedded devices have a natural human-computer interaction interface, the GUI screen-centered multimedia interface gives people great affinity. Handwritten text input, voice dial-up Internet access, E-mail and color graphics, images have achieved initial results.
At present, some advanced PDA has realized Chinese writing and short message voice release on the display screen, and the daily range will be increasingly broad. 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, not only can it be used for ATM machines, vending machines, industrial control and other special equipment, but also for the combination of mobile communication equipment, GPS, and entertainment, embedded systems can also play a huge role. Recently, Changhong launched ADSL products, combined with network, control, information, this intelligent, networking will be a new trend in the development of home appliances.
In terms of hardware, there are not only microprocessor chips from major companies, but also various supporting development kits for learning and research and development. At present, the low-level system and hardware platform have been relatively mature after several years of research, and the chip has everything to achieve various functions. And the huge market demand has provided us with the funds and technical strength for research and development.
In terms of software, there are also quite a few mature software systems. Foreign commercial embedded real-time operating systems have entered our market WindRiver, Microsoft, QNX and Nuclear and other products. China’s self-developed embedded system software products such as CoreTek’s embedded software development platform DeltaSystem, the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched Hopen embedded operating system (although not perfect). At the same time, because it is a research hotspot, we can find a variety of free resources on the Internet, from the development documents of major manufacturers, to various drivers, program source code, and even many manufacturers provide microprocessor samples. This is undoubtedly a treasure house of resources for us to engage in research and development in this area. For software design, whether it is getting started or further development, it is relatively easy. This enables many new hands to enter the research state relatively quickly, which is conducive to exerting everyone’s positive creativity.