Embedded Systems/Embedded System Basics

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Embedded systems programming is not like normal PC programming. In many ways, programming for an embedded system is like programming a PC 15 years ago. The hardware for the system is usually chosen to make the device as cheap as possible. Spending an extra dollar a unit in order to make things easier to program can cost millions. Hiring a programmer for an extra month is cheap in comparison. This means the programmer must make do with slow processors and low memory, while at the same time battling a need for efficiency not seen in most PC applications. Below is a list of issues specific to the embedded field.


Embedded development makes up a small fraction of total programming. There's also a large number of embedded architectures, unlike the PC world where 1 instruction set rules, and the Unix world where there's only 3 or 4 major ones. This means that the tools are more expensive. It also means that they're lower featured, and less developed. On a major embedded project, at some point you will almost always find a compiler bug of some sort.

Debugging tools are another issue. Since you can't always run general programs on your embedded processor, you can't always run a debugger on it. This makes fixing your program difficult. Special hardware such as JTAG ports can overcome this issue in part. However, if you stop on a breakpoint when your system is controlling real world hardware (such as a motor), permanent equipment damage can occur. As a result, people doing embedded programming quickly become masters at using serial IO channels and error message style debugging.


To save costs, embedded systems frequently have the cheapest processors that can do the job. This means your programs need to be written as efficiently as possible. When dealing with large data sets, issues like memory cache misses that never matter in PC programming can hurt you. Luckily, this won't happen too often- use reasonably efficient algorithms to start, and optimize only when necessary. Of course, normal profilers won't work well, due to the same reason debuggers don't work well. So more intuition and an understanding of your software and hardware architecture is necessary to optimize effectively.

Memory is also an issue. For the same cost savings reasons, embedded systems usually have the least memory they can get away with. That means their algorithms must be memory efficient (unlike in PC programs, you will frequently sacrifice processor time for memory, rather than the reverse). It also means you can't afford to leak memory. Embedded applications generally use deterministic memory techniques and avoid the default "new" and "malloc" functions, so that leaks can be found and eliminated more easily.

Other resources programmers expect may not even exist. For example, most embedded processors do not have hardware FPUs (Floating-Point Processing Unit). These resources either need to be emulated in software, or avoided altogether.

Real Time Issues[edit]

Embedded systems frequently control hardware, and must be able to respond to them in real time. Failure to do so could cause inaccuracy in measurements, or even damage hardware such as motors. This is made even more difficult by the lack of resources available. Almost all embedded systems need to be able to prioritize some tasks over others, and to be able to put off/skip low priority tasks such as UI in favor of high priority tasks like hardware control.

Fixed-Point Arithmetic[edit]

Some embedded microprocessors may have an external unit for performing floating point arithmetic(FPU), but most low-end embedded systems have no FPU. Most C compilers will provide software floating point support, but this is significantly slower than a hardware FPU. As a result, many embedded projects enforce a no floating point rule on their programmers. This is in strong contrast to PCs, where the FPU has been integrated into all the major microprocessors, and programmers take fast floating point number calculations for granted. Many DSPs also do not have an FPU and require fixed-point arithemtic to obtain acceptable performance.

A common technique used to avoid the need for floating point numbers is to change the magnitude of data stored in your variables so you can utilize fixed point mathematics. For example, if you are adding inches and only need to be accurate to the hundredth of an inch, you could store the data as hundredths rather than inches. This allows you to use normal fixed point arithmetic. This technique works so long as you know the magnitude of data you are adding ahead of time, and know the accuracy to which you need to store your data.

We will go into more detail on fixed-point and floating-point numbers in a later chapter.

further reading[edit]