QUESTIONS: EMBEDDED SYSTEM DESIGN

UNIT 1
EMBEDDED SYSTEM INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction, History ,Application Areas

a) Define a system & embedded system.

b) What are the essential structural units in 1) Microprocessor 2) Embedded
processor 3) Microcontroller 4) DSP
c) Compare features in an exemplary family chip of the following:
Microprocessor, Microcontroller, RISC processor
d) List the various application areas of embedded systems & give example for each
application area.
e) Write features of Real time embedded system.

1.2 Design challenges, optimization of design metric

a) Explain the following design metric:

Unit cost, power, size
b) What is time to market design metric
c) What is a “market window” & why is it so important for products to reach the
market early in this window.

1.3 Application & Recent trends

a) Explain the different applications of embedded system

b) Differentiate General purpose system & embedded system.
c) What are the recent trends in embedded system design.

1.4 & 1.5 Bluetooth

a) Give the broad specifications of Bluetooth standard.

b) Explain the protocol architecture of Bluetooth & all details of physical layer.
c) List the different functions of L2CAP.
d) What are the different class of devices supported by Bluetooth.
e) What are the different topologies of a Bluetooth piconet
1.6 IrDA, GPRS

a) Compare the following:

i. Bluetooth with IrDA
ii. Bluetooth with GPRS
b) Explain the transceiver section of IrDA
c) What are the different layers of IrDA protocol architecture.
d) What are the applications of GPRS .

1.7 IEEE 802.11 & IEEE 802.16

a) Compare IEEE 802.11 with IEEE 802.16

b) What are the physical medium specifications for 802.11
c) Explain the advantages of using ISM band.

1.8 & 1.9 CAN & MODBUS

a) Compare the following

CAN with MODBUS
b) Explain the concept of bit encoding in CAN
c) What are the applications of CAN

UNIT 2

SYSTEM & PROCESSOR ARCHITECTURE

2.1 Hardware & Software architecture

a) Explain the hardware architecture of an embedded system.

b) Explain the internal architecture of a processor.
c) List different types of memory & explain their differences.
d) What are different criteria used while selecting memory for embedded system.
e) What are the different categories of embedded operating systems.
f) What are the services provided by an operating system.
g) Compare desktop computer with embedded system.
h) Explain the following
i. Task, Context switching, Mutual exclusion
i) What are the different criteria used while selecting memory for embedded system.
2.2 Processor selection for embedded system

a) How a processor is selected for embedded system applications.

b) What are the special units in processors for digital camera system, real time
videoprocessing systems & video games

2.3 Memory architecture & I/O devices

a) What are the different types of memory used .

b) List the advantages of Flash memory.
c) What are the types of RAM memory.
d) Compare EPROM with EEPROM.
e) Compare serial input I/O device with serial output I/O device.
f) Explain synchronous,& Asynchronous communication.

2.4 Interrupt & Interrupt Latency

a) What is interrupt latency & explain the difference between interrupt latency
for processor & operating system
b) Explain with example how shared data problem occurs when interrupt arrives.
What are different ways to avoid it.

2.5 Tasks, Context switch & TCB

a) What is task. What are the different states of task.

b) Explain the concept of context switching.
c) What are the parameters at a TCB of a task.
d) Which is the entity controlling the transitions from one state to another in a task.
e) Define critical section of task.
f) How do functions differ from ISRs, tasks, threads & processes
g) What are the analogies between process, task & thread. Also list the differences
between the process, task & thread

2.6 Architecture of DSP,

a) How does a DSP processor differ from a general purpose processor

b) What are the essential structural units in DSP
c) What are the applications of DSP in embedded system design.
d) Explain the
 UNIT 3

PROGRAMMING CONCEPTS

3.1 Inter process communication

a) How does a data generated by a process transfer to another using an IPC.

b) When are sockets used for IPCs. List some examples.

3.2 Introduction to software architecture

a) Explain Round Robin architecture. What are its advantages

b) Explain the characteristics of Round robin with interrupt architecture
c) Compare RTOS with Round robin architecture

3.3 Tasks, Thread, Scheduling

a) What are the states of task. Which is the entity controlling the transitions from
one state to another in a task
b) Define critical section of a task.
c) Each task or process has an infinite loop in a preemptive scheduler. How does the
control of resources transfer from one task to another.
d) Compare task with thread.

3.4 & 3.5 Development tools & Device driver

a) What is code optimization.

b) Explain the different productivity tools used for developing software.
c) Give the features of UART device driver for UC/OS II.
d) List the different commands used for indentation.

UNIT 4

REAL TIME OPERATING SYSTEM CONCEPT

4.1 & 4.2 Architecture of Kernel

a) What are the objects of an operating system Kernel

b) List the functions of Kernel
c) Explain in brief process management function of Kernel
4.3 Task Scheduler

a) What is task scheduling. Explain the various scheduling algorithms.

4.4 Semaphore & Queue

b) Explain different types of semaphore.

c) What are the different operations handled by Semaphore.
d) What is Semaphore. Explain with an example.
e) List the Message Queue Management function calls...

4.5 & 4.6 Mailboxes. Pipes, Events, Timers

a) Compare Pipe, Message & events.

b) Explain the services provided by Message mailbox.
c) Explain the implementation of Message mailbox in C

4.6 & 4.7 & 4.8 Memory Management, Comparison with traditional OS

a) Explain the Memory Management functions of RTOS.

b) Why C library functions Malloc() & free() are not used in real time operating
system.
c) How MMU is used for Memory management in RTOS.
d) Compare RTOS with traditional OS

UNIT 5
COMMERCIAL RTOS

5.1 VxWorks

a) Differentiate between QNX and Vx works..

b) How do you spawn tasks. Why should you not delete a task unless memory
constraint exists.
c) Explain the watchdog timer related function.
d) What are the additional features of VxWorks. With regard to message mailbox
compared to Ucos.
e) List the different task states.

5.2 & 5.3 UCOS

a) What are the features of Ucos. List any four services offered by UCOS.
b) Explain the following functions of UCOS.
i)Task related functions
ii)Timer related functions
c) How does a mailbox message differs from a queue message in UCOS
 5.4 RTLINUX

a. Compare in detail:
b. VxWorks with RTLinux
c. Explain the following functions of RTLinux OS
i. i)IPC functions ii) Mutex management functions
d. What is RTLinux module.
e. What are the function calls provided for Timer management in RTLinux.

5.5 QNX

a) What are the special features of QNX.

b) Explain the interprocess communication in QNX

5.6 NUCLEUS

a) Compare QNX with NUCLEUS

b) What are the applications of Nucleus

5.7 Software development life cycle

a) What is complexity of an algorithm.

b) What are the phases & models of software development process.
c) What are the realtime programming & software development process issues.
d) Explain the different stages of waterfall model.
e) What are the advantages & disadvantages of using a Rapid development model
during the embedded software development process.

5.8 Mobile Computing

a) What is the operating system selection criteria for mobile computing

b) Compare four commercial Mobile computing OS.
c) What are the important requirements for a Mobile computing system.

UNIT 6
CASE STUDY OF EMBEDDED SYSTEM

6.1 Digital Camera case study

a) Explain the processor & Memory requirement of digital camera system.

b) Explain in detail case study of Surveillance camera.

6.2 Car Control

 a) Explain the implementation of car cruise control system.
b) Explain the task scheduling model of Adaptive cruise control system.

6.3 & 6.4 Smart card & RFID

a) Explain in detail the attendance system using smart card.

b) What is smart card. List the various applications of smart card.
c) What are the different frequency bands used for RFID.
d) Explain the functioning of RFID system.