EMBEDDED SOFTWARE IN REAL-TIME SIGNAL-PROCESSING SYSTEMS - APPLICATION AND ARCHITECTURE TRENDS

This paper presents an extensive survey of trends in embedded processo r use with an emphasis on emerging applications in wireless communicat ion, multimedia, and general telecommunications. We demonstrate the im portance of application-specific instruction-set processors (ASIP's) i n high-volume, low cost applications. We also examine some of the unde rlying trends of the applications in which embedded processors are use d. This is followed by a description of embedded software development tool requirements. High-performance software compilation emerges as a key requirement. Finally specific industrial case studies of products in MPEG, videophone, and low-cost digital signal processor (DSP) appli cations are used to illustrate the architecture design tradeoffs, and highlight specific tool requirements, A companion paper in this issue [1] presents a comprehensive survey of embedded software development t ools, focusing mostly on retargetable software compilation.