OE-9.4 Embedded System Design Cycle & Software Tools
You can describe the hardware-software co-design cycle, and explain the role of host and target machines, linkers and locators, and loading software into a target system.
Co-design is the unit's real idea: what runs in hardware and what runs in software is a decision made during design, not one handed to you. The host/target split is the practical consequence - you compile on one machine and run on another, which is why cross-compilation and locators exist. A locator differs from a linker because embedded memory is a fixed physical map rather than an address space the OS hands out, and that distinction explains most first-time build failures.
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Embedded system design and co-design issues in the development process
Deciding what goes in hardware and what goes in software, which is the decision unique to this field. Getting it wrong is expensive because hardware changes slowly.
Design cycle in the development phase for an embedded system
The sequence a project actually follows, from requirements to a working board. It is the frame for the four items below.
Host and target machines
The machine you develop on is not the machine that runs it, which is the fact that makes everything below necessary. It is the first surprise for someone coming from ordinary programming.
Cross-compilation for embedded targets
Building code on one architecture to run on another. The toolchain setup is a real cost and it is where new projects lose their first week.
Linkers and locators for embedded software
Deciding where code and data physically live in the target, which no ordinary programmer thinks about. Memory maps and linker scripts are the artefacts here.
Getting embedded software into the target system
Actually getting the image onto the device, by whichever route the hardware allows. It is the last step of the cycle and the one repeated most often.
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