Operating System Options for Consumer Devices

By John A. Carbone

October 22, 2006

(Operating System Options for Consumer Devices :  Page 1 of 1 )

Innovative consumer electronics products have replaced business information technology systems as the major force driving the electronics industry. The explosive growth in this market has led to a proliferation of hardware platforms, operating systems, and development tools. In response, the consumer products industry is embracing the concept of device software optimization (DSO) which involves optimization of technologies and processes on an enterprise basis rather than project by project. However, the highly competitive nature of the consumer products industry and the wide spectrum of products being developed to meet various market requirements means that only rarely does one size fit all.

The explosion of the consumer device market over the past decade has generated products primarily in three categories. Low-end devices generally are built around ASICs or SoCs with small amounts of program memory (ROM), typically around 256 kbytes, use an inexpensive processor, are manufactured in high volumes, and are typically developed by a single programming team. Typical examples of this type of device include many digital still cameras (DSCs) and inkjet printers.

Mid-range consumer devices, such as video cameras, are characterized by moderate amounts of program memory in the area of 1 to 2 Mbytes and multiple programming teams. High-end devices, such as smart phones and set-top boxes (STBs), typically have much more memory, perhaps 32 Mbytes, use powerful processors and are developed by large programming teams.

Differing operating system requirements

The OS requirements for these different categories of consumer devices vary widely. High-end devices typically use relatively expensive high-end processors, and often also coprocessors, that deliver tremendous throughput. These high-end devices typically have a high degree of human interaction, though, and users are slow enough that the high-end processors in these devices usually have no problem keeping up. Because of this, the real-time requirements are not particularly demanding.

 Page 1 of 1