Book Image

The Complete Edition - Software Engineering for Real-Time Systems

By : Jim Cooling
Book Image

The Complete Edition - Software Engineering for Real-Time Systems

By: Jim Cooling

Overview of this book

From air traffic control systems to network multimedia systems, real-time systems are everywhere. The correctness of the real-time system depends on the physical instant and the logical results of the computations. This book provides an elaborate introduction to software engineering for real-time systems, including a range of activities and methods required to produce a great real-time system. The book kicks off by describing real-time systems, their applications, and their impact on software design. You will learn the concepts of software and program design, as well as the different types of programming, software errors, and software life cycles, and how a multitasking structure benefits a system design. Moving ahead, you will learn why diagrams and diagramming plays a critical role in the software development process. You will practice documenting code-related work using Unified Modeling Language (UML), and analyze and test source code in both host and target systems to understand why performance is a key design-driver in applications. Next, you will develop a design strategy to overcome critical and fault-tolerant systems, and learn the importance of documentation in system design. By the end of this book, you will have sound knowledge and skills for developing real-time embedded systems.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Preface
15
Glossary of terms

11.10 Installing Code on the Target – Non-Volatile Software (Firmware)

11.10.1 Overview

Program environments can be described as volatile or non-volatile. The use of a PC as a target system typifies a volatile setting. Program behavior in these situations can be broken down into two parts: startup and application run, as in Figure 11.55:

Figure 11.55: Program behavior in a volatile environment

Here, a boot program is carried in a non-volatile store, usually an EPROM. This first performs basic checks and housekeeping tasks, including hardware checks. It then loads part (or all) of the operating system from disk into main, usually RAM-based, memory. To run an application program, the user enters appropriate commands using the keyboard. These are interpreted by the operating system, which proceeds to download the user program into the main memory and execute the code. Note that the user may be excluded from the process by having an auto-execute feature...