Domain Specific Embedded Software Solutions and Promotion of - - PDF document

Domain Specific Embedded Software Solutions and Promotion of Embedded Linux in Korea

Jung-Guk Kim Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea jgkim@ hufs.ac.kr Moon Hae Kim Konkuk University, Korea mhkim@ konkuk.ac.kr Abstract

In last April, a survey to find out Korean embedded S/W solutions and their competitiveness has been

• performed. In this paper, the survey results and the

general S/W stack architectures used for DMB, mobile phone, telematics, and home server services are briefly

• introduced. Some promotion polices for S/W and OSS

business proposed to the Korean government are also

• introduced. Based on this survey, we propose to discuss

how to collaborate in the area of open source for embedded software.

• 1. Introduction

In Korea, DMB, home network, mobile phone and telematics services can be stated as most hot application- domains of embedded system industry. In these four services, a number of big companies are doing their businesses relatively well and their progresses of developing new-generation services are very rapid. Though their businesses are very successful, the current embedded S/W industry still has some critical problems such as lack of core solutions and lack of solution business. These difficulties are considered to be the main sources of the current depression in S/W business in Korea. To

• vercome these difficulties and to prepare appropriate S/W

business promotion policies, the Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency (KIPA) decided to survey current situation and competitiveness of embedded S/W solutions developed by Korean companies. The KIPA survey team did their work on four domains, that is, mobile phone, DMB, home server, and telematics. As a result, several policies to promote S/W businesses have been proposed to the government in April 2005. In this paper, the S/W reference architectures that have been used for each domain and the current industry situations according to these architectures are introduced. Then, as conclusions, the proposed promotion policies are described.

• 2. Mobile Phone

In the domain of Mobile Phone service, the S/W stack architecture has been defined as to have four layers; OS, core system components, middlewares and applications. For each function module in the four layers, domestic solutions and their competitiveness have been surveyed. As in the figure 1, the competitiveness is classified into four levels; strong, competitive, weak and very weak; according to the existence of domestic solutions and their degrees of commercial usages. Figure 1. Mobile Phone S/W Stack The results of this survey are as follows.

As the layer goes to the lower system layer, the

competitiveness becomes weaker. For example, the domestic embedded Linux solution is just in the level of prototype development mainly because of the maintenance problem.

In the virtual machine (middleware) layer, the

Korean WIPI solution is active but this is restricted in Korea. In the case of export, the Java phone is widely required but the support shows weakness.

In the layer of application, service applications and

solution components related to multimedia came

• ut to have strong points compared to foreign

solutions. Considering the international trend in embedded OS is that OS venders announce new generation OS that is

• ptimized and specialized to new chip sets of mobile

phones, the weakness in lower layers is thought to deepen the dependency of core technologies.

• 3. DMB

DMB(Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) is an extension

• f DAB(Digital Audio Broadcasting) and is divided into

satellite DMB and terrestrial DMB service. The satellite DMB service was started at the last September in Korea and the terrestrial DMB service will be began in this year. Figure 2 shows the S/W architecture and competitiveness

• f solutions of DMB terminals.

The survey results are as follows.

The competitiveness of OS and protocol layer is

very weak.

From CODEC to application layer, the solutions

seem to have competitiveness relative to foreign solutions.

Related to TPEG, several standards are currently

being made.

• 4. Telematics

Telematics is a compound terminology from telecommunications and informatics and the coverage of this technology in Korea is from traveling guide to automotive control. We defined the telematics S/W stack as to have four layers; that is; OS, middlewares for multimedia and virtual machine service, telematics management and application

• layer. In the telematics domain, the survey results are as

follows. Figure 3. Telematics S/W Stack

The part of application layer related to information

service is strong, however, services related to safety and control are just in the state of beginning.

Usually, a kind of traditional real-time OS is

preferred although real-time control services related to automotive control and safety are not yet included in telematics services.

• 5. Home Server

In this survey, we defined that home-server service is composed of home gateway and home set-top box service. Figure 2. DMB S/W Stack

The service components of home gateway service are as follows.

Network gateway service; Home office services (VoIP, etc.) Home automation services Home security services

The service components of home set-top box service are as follows.

ICE(Information, Communication, Entertainment)

services

Home

gateway related services (Security, Automation)

Digital contents related services Home office related services

The above home STB services can be stated as the merged one of IP-STB and home network. As in the other domains, in the OS and system module layers, the industry shows their relative weakness. In this survey, especially the CAS(Controlled Access System) and DRM(Digital Rights Management) are came out to be key business components in home server domain as well as in DMB, however, it was found out that there’s no original domestic solutions.

• 6. Proposed Promotion Policies

Based on the results of survey, the main reasons of the depression of S/W business in Korea can be summarized as follows.

• Lack of core solutions such as RTOS, basic

middlewares, and new technical components in compliance with new international standards.

• Economical difficulties of small collaborating

companies due to the style of contracts (SI- based) with CE venders;

• Lack of license-based business;
• Duplicated developments of S/W components

such as device drivers, system modules, etc.;

• Difficulties in continuous and high-quality

maintenance and technical support for domestic solutions including embedded Linux. To overcome these difficulties, we proposed to set up an

• rganization named “Embedded S/W Engineering Center”

that may be ether a public or private corporation. The followings are main activities of this organization.

• Continuous technical supports and maintenance

for open source S/W solutions including embedded Linux ;

• Organizing an alliance program for continuous

maintenance;

• Maintaining a embedded S/W solution-map DB

to promote fast and effective collaborations between companies;

• Technical marketing of domestic solutions;
• Developing common basic solutions such as

device drivers, GUI modules, etc.;

• Maintenance of a DB containing information of

high skilled embedded S/W engineers; Figure 4. Home Gateway S/W Stack Figure 5. Home STB S/W Stack

In the above, the jobs relevant to embedded Linux came from awareness of the fact that a fast and effective way to

• vercome the lack of low-level core solutions is to make
• pen source S/W solutions to be more reliable, more

powerful, and more maintainable. KIPA and Ministry of Information & Communications accepted these proposed policies this year. Moreover, they made a plan to expand these activities to international collaborative jobs among Korea, Japan and China by proposing it to the CJK Open Source S/W Promotion Forum.

References

[1] Jung G. Kim, et al., “Analysis of Embedded S/W Industry based on the Embedded S/W Solution Map,” a KIPA Report, April 2005.