Embedded Systems (ES) are "systems of the real world" where sensors, processors, memories, peripherals and software are tightly integrated into an efficient special purpose system interacting with its environment. This course focuses on the Hardware / Software co-design of Embedded Systems as well as on their implementation in the laboratory using an FPGA development card with reconfigurable logic and a built-in ARM microprocessor. The course covers: ES design and implementation technologies (Microcontrollers, FPGAs, Hybrid). Intellectual Property (IP) cores and their interconnection, Systems-on-Chip, Networks-on-Chip. Embedded software, multi-processing management techniques, real-time operating system kernels. Hierarchical design of embedded systems using hardware description languages (VHDL) and hardware synthesis, high-level synthesis tools. Low power design and energy minimization techniques. Design of computational embedded systems combining a general purpose and special purpose processors into the same integrated circuit (Multiprocessor Systems on Chip). Modeling and simulation of ES. Examples of embedded systems in telecommunications, low power digital signal/image processing, robotics. Distributed ES: Wireless Sensor Networks, Internet of Things. ESs for artificial intelligence and biomedical applications. In the Laboratory: Phased design using VHDL and embedded software development of a System-on-Chip built around an ARM microprocessor and implemented using an FPGA development board.
Basic textbook «Σχεδιασμός Κυκλωμάτων με VHDL», V. Pedroni, Επιμέλεια: Γ. Θεοδωρίδης, Εκδόσεις Κλειδάριθμος, ISBN: 978-960-461-118-8. Alternative textbook: Marwedel, Peter, Embedded System Design, Embedded Systems Foundations of Cyber-Physical Systems, 2nd Edition, ISBN: 978-94-007-0256-1
Also discussed literature articles and detailed lecture transparencies are provided on eclass