Incorporating Cost Modeling in Embedded-System Design

The emergence of multimedia and wireless applications as growth leaders has created an increased demand for embedded systems. Examples of such applications range from digital cellular telephones to high-performance avionics systems. Along with the increased market share of these products, however, has come an increase in system complexity and cost. For example, the complexity of embedded avionics systems has quickly grown from millions to billions of operations per second. These systems, formerly implemented in hardwired or uniprocessor architectures, now must consist of programmable-multiprocessor arrays to meet performance requirements. Time-to-market and life-cycle costs are key factors in the success of these products in the competitive electronics marketplace. These costs, therefore, should have a dominant influence on the design of embedded microelectronic systems. In addition, these systems must meet rigid form factor (such as size, power, and weight) constraints, which further complicate the design task. For designers of high-end embedded microsystems or large-volume consumer products, rapidly prototyping cost-effective implementations that meet stringent performance, functional, timing, and physical requirements is a formidable challenge