Software development tools for embedded systems

Abstract

Software quality and availability (completion) is highly impacted by the tools used in each stage of development. By focusing on tools issues, this paper increases the developers' focus to formulating a sound software development environment. The starting point of system software development is requirement analysis and design. Once the system is defined, its functions are allocated to distinct hardware or software items, and interfaces between these items are defined. Software requirement analysis is the process of specifying software function, performance, interfaces and design constraints. The next stage is preliminary design. This is followed by detailed design that may be represented graphically or in a combination of programming language. The design is then taken up for implementation which involves writing code for all units and testing them individually. The final stage is integration and software component level testing. Tools for embedded system development include: cross compilation systems, in-circuit tools, simulators, debuggers etc. The features, benefits and tradeoffs of these tools, and how they apply to each stage of software development, are examined. This will provide the designer with a comprehensive suite of software development tools that support embedded designs.