Long term trends for embedded system design

An embedded system is an application specific electronic subsystem used in a larger system such as an appliance, an instrument or a vehicle. An embedded system is generally made of software (called embedded software) and a hardware platform. The evolution of technologies is enabling to the integration of complex platforms in a single chip (called system-on-chip, SoC) including one or several CPU subsystems to execute software and sophisticated interconnect in addition to specific hardware subsystems. Mastering the design of these embedded systems is a challenge for both system and semiconductor houses that used to apply only software strategy or only hardware strategy. This paper analyzes this evolution and defines long term roadmaps for embedded system design.