What is an embedded system? Can Mobile be considered an embedded product?

What does embedded system mean?

If the system / machine or product that we create is designed for several purposes, can we consider this an embedded system? Or is it just a system designed for a specific task, which is considered as an embedded system? Can a PC / mobile / laptop be considered as an embedded system or not?

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As a rule, the embedded system is put into operation for a specific narrow purpose and does not have any general-purpose user interfaces that you will find on a regular desktop / laptop.

This is not to say that an embedded system cannot be like this: I saw test equipment, such as network analyzers running on desktop operating systems, with mouse / keyboard ports. You can probably hack one of them to use it for general-purpose computing, but that would be impractical.

Going the other way, you can take a general-purpose computer and insert it into the embedded application. However, systems optimized for embedded use can be more reliable, support better real-world I / O (often preserving obsolete ports) and use parts that are expected to be available over a longer life than used on commodity PCs (if you fail, you want to be able to replace it with the same thing).

Often embedded systems are smaller - 8-bit processors (even 4-bit or sequential cores) with limited memory; although 32-bit kernels, such as the family of hands, are now inexpensive and common. It is not known that no more than tens and hundreds of megabytes of memory are unknown.

Old cell phones will have much in common with embedded systems, but rather, modern smartphones are catching up with power and versatility, although they are still often limited to the user interface. The software is tricky that some “think about small” habits endure - for example, the compact Cionic Bion library and the Android toolbar have similar design goals for the built-in C and busybox libraries. In other ways, however, mobile phones now have a normal resource-intensive user interface. Launch tablets based on the same processors and accessories with a keyboard in the mix, run the kernel originally designed for the desktop computers on them, and the real difference between the user interface software packages designed to run separate “applications” on the touch interface, to launch more traditional programs.

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This question is often asked and discussed even by specialists in embedded systems . There is, as with many, a spectrum, and simple definitions are complex.

My preferred definition: a system containing one or more computing or processing elements that are not a general purpose computer.

Some systems are undoubtedly built into this definition and include elements such as washing machine controllers, telephone switches, satellite navigation equipment, marine chart plotters, car ECUs, laser printers, etc.

Some of them are not so easy to classify. The first-generation digital mobile phone is probably an embedded system, while more modern features and smartphones, however, are somewhat different. They can run applications selected and installed by end users, which allows them to perform tasks not specified by the manufacturer. With growing capabilities, they are essentially portable computers and a set of applications sufficient to be considered "universal."

With these more controversial systems, it is useful to ask, perhaps, not what is an embedded system, but what is the development of embedded systems? For example, the manufacturer of your smartphone deployed the operating system on it, the signal processing and communication stack necessary to operate as a phone, all device drivers and stacks for WiFi, USB, data storage, etc., and this, of course, is development embedded systems. However, guys writing applications for PlayStore or AppStore, etc., write on a specific common platform, abstracted from all this embedded code - this is not the development of embedded systems by any definition that I would accept if, perhaps, the application was not intended for some bespoke vertical market app. - like, for example, applications for signing delivery, which the UPS drivers on the PDA have, in this environment the "universal" device was renamed to the "special" device.

In relation to the PC; A PC may be an embedded computing element in a system that is not a general purpose computer. Industrial PCs are usually integrated in manufacturing and packaging equipment, CNC machines, medical equipment, etc. Although they share a common hardware architecture with desktop PCs, they do not necessarily look like desktop PCs and have many different form factors for both boards and chassis. However, even on a desktop PC there are many examples of embedded computing elements and embedded software, such as the BIOS, which is responsible for loading the system, such as the keyboard controller and the drive controller.

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An embedded system is any electronic system that uses a CPU chip, but it is not a general purpose workstation, desktop computer or laptop. An embedded system is a specialized computer system designed to perform a specialized function. Unlike a general-purpose computer, such as a personal computer, an embedded system performs one or more predefined tasks, usually with very specific requirements, and often includes hardware and mechanical parts specific to specific tasks that are not usually found in a universal computer .

More details: http://romux-loc.com/tutorials/embedded-system#ixzz3113gchPt

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An embedded system is a device that does a specific job, unlike our laptops, that can play music, click images, and format documents. These are devices such as a water filter, washing machines, vending machines, etc. They are programmed for a specific work and perform this work in a supercycle depending on user input. As a vending machine, it always does the same thing when you select coffee in it using the button presented in it.

Thus, a mobile phone is not an embedded system because it does not have super-cycles and it can perform various general-purpose functions, like a computer.

The embedded system has memory limitations, time limits, and they do things in a limited space. You can read about embedded further on this-

http://doafco.com/wp/2019/06/03/what-is-embedded-system/

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A definition that can help get the difference. An embedded system can be considered as a system with which another embedded system cannot be developed. So now, using a mobile phone, it is impossible to develop an “embedded system”. If this is possible using a mobile device, then it should be considered as a general-purpose system.

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An example of an “ embedded system ” is a chip that is inserted under a dog’s skin for identification purposes. Words such as "embedded system" have certain meanings that only specialists understand. Such ambiguities make it difficult for ordinary people to understand ordinary language.

embedded ( ɪmˈbɛdɪd ) adj

  • fixed firmly and deeply in the surrounding solid mass.
  • constituting a permanent and noticeable feature of something.
  • (Journalism and publication) journalism assigned to accompany an active military unit. grammar
  • (grammar) inserted in a sentence
  • (computer science) computing (parts of software) has become an integral part of other software.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/920181/


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