| The embedded systems market is driven by the increasing complexity of algorithms, improved microprocessor performance, the need for flexible designs using greater amounts of software, shorter time to market, and higher quality, while maintaining or reducing the necessary resources to complete a design.;As embedded systems increase in complexity both in hardware and software, the difficulty associated with improving the time to market of new systems becomes more dependent on the time required to integrate the system components and validate the correctness of the implementation. If integration and testing techniques do not keep pace with improvements to design and development, then the bottleneck in the overall process of delivering a product to market is limited by the time required to verify the product's quality.;This thesis dissertation investigates the problems associated with current design practice and focuses primarily on integration and testing at the component, board, subsystem and system levels. Current methods in integration and testing are described and evaluated based on a defined set of criteria suitable for differentiating the various techniques. After evaluating the current methods used for integration and testing, a new approach using virtual prototyping is investigated and compared with the alternative approaches. The virtual prototyping approach is then validated on the design of a large digital signal processing system. |
