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for a past academic year. Please see the current academic year for up to date information.
| Unit name |
Embedded System Integration |
| Unit code |
COMS35102 |
| Credit points |
10 |
| Level of study |
H/6
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
|
| Unit director |
Dr. Hollis |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
COMS12200 or EENG34040 or COMSM1302
|
| Co-requisites |
None
|
| School/department |
Department of Computer Science |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Engineering |
Description including Unit Aims
The over-arching aim of this unit is to explore the combination and unification of both theory and practice from previous units. The unit focuses on development of embedded computing systems, and how a close interaction between and understanding of hardware and software is vital. Basic knowledge of computer architecture is a pre-requisite.
Aims:
Focussing on modern embedded processors, this unit will show you how to develop a complete state-of-the-art embedded computer system including processors, storage sub-systems, multi-processing and co-processor devices, and an operating system. Review and assimilation of the following topics should be achieved:
- The memory hierarchy: copying data, disks, file systems, transferring data between the disk and the system, DMA, cache coherency, snooping caches, virtual memory and memory management, protection, relocation, the memory hierarchy revisited.
- Performance and scalability: splitting caches, interleaved memory, multi ported memories, multiple bus segments, crossbar interconnects, more general switches, I/O ports, channels, coherency issues, scalability issues.
- OS and software development: device drivers, fundamentals of the operating system, buffering requirements in operating systems, threads and mutexes in C, resource management and deadlocks, multiple users.
- Multiple processors: tightly coupled multi-processors, operating system consequences.
Intended Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
- integrate hardware and software components into a working embedded system,
- recognise and reason about how components interfere and interact with each other,
- understand and write the operating system components that act as glue between hardware and software, and develop applications for the resulting system.
Teaching Information
Roughly 2/3 of teaching in lecture format, 1/3 in laboratory or problem class format.
Assessment Information
100% coursework, using laboratory based development of an embedded computer system; the coursework will be broken down into stages, each targeting one of the learning objectives of the unit, for example:
Learning outcome: knowledge of ARM assembler; Assessment: interactive marked labs where programs are built in assembler using the latest tools and methodologies.
Learning outcome: knowledge of internals and implementation of an Operating System; Assessment: marked labwork where an operating system is implemented.
Learning outcome: understanding of how modern embedded systems are integrated; assessment: interactive marked labs where multiple components in different programming languages are combined to produce a complete working system.
Reading and References
- D.A. Patterson and J.L. Hennessy. Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach (4th Edition), Morgan Kaufman, ISBN: 978-0123704900. Price �37.50
- D. Seal. ARM Architecture Reference Manual (2nd Edition). Addison-Wesley, ISBN: 978-0201737196. Price: �48.00.
- Programming embedded systems: with C and GNU development tools (2nd Edition), O'Reilly. ISBN:978-0596009830. Price �29.50
- A. Silberschatz and P. Galvin. Applied Operating System Concepts. John Wiley, ISBN: 0471365084. Price: �25.95.
- R.D. Dowsing, F.W.D. Woodhams and I. Marshall. Computers from Logic to Architecture. (3rd edition). McGraw-Hill, ISBN: 0077095847. Price: �22.00.
