During the last decade embedded devices have invaded our everyday life, to the degree that it is becoming hard to imagine living without them. Embedded systems are currently present at home (set-top boxes, smartphones, TV set), at work (smartphones, tablets), even when we travel (in-car and in-flight entertainment). Nowadays this technology allows everyone to be “connected” nearly everywhere, by several possible means (voice, text, and video).
With the recent advances in wireless networks and the exponential growth in the usage of multimedia applications, multi-core platforms point to be the solution of feature-rich phones to deliver the performance comparable to today’s computer system with the hugely increased complexity of also requiring real-time and protected execution environments to maintain their embedded functionality. The availability of powerful heterogeneous multi-core processors has led to an unforeseen escalation of software complexity as device manufacturers are integrating multimedia services, data networking, photography, telephony and personal information management into their embedded products. The following figure is an example for the complexity of features in mobile devices, as the time progresses.
The software stack running on contemporary smart-phones is already 5–7Mloc, and growing. Top-of the-line cars contain literally gigabytes of software. Increasingly, embedded systems run applications originally developed for the PC world (web browsers, games).
Needless to say, the ever-increasing complexity of such devices becomes a limiting factor: being able to timely deliver top feature-rich devices poses a renewed challenge over system-on-chip (SOC) designers. To be competitive, new communication, consumer, and computer product designs must exhibit rapid increases in functionality, reliability, and bandwidth at sustainable cost and power consumption. There is intense pressure on chip designers to develop increasingly complex hardware in decreasing amounts of time.
