Issues in the development of an integrated environment for embedded system design - Part B: design and implementation

Today's embedded system designer has limited assistance in performing system design tasks but yet has a range of software tools to assist the implementation process. The availability of these tools is often the most important issue when selecting a particular microcontroller. In this article, the authors describe the research performed to analyse the requirements for the development of an Integrated development environment (IDE) for embedded system design. These issues are initially investigated from a high level in terms of the architectural considerations of the system. The research then considers the format and frequency of the data to be transferred within the system and finally the available communication mechanisms. The article concludes with a recommended approach to the development of an IDE for embedded system design. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.