Generally has the following two characteristics:
Embedded systems are advanced computer technology, semiconductor technology and electronics technology and the specific applications of various industries after the combination of the product, which determines that it is necessarily a technology-intensive, capital-intensive, highly decentralized, constantly innovating knowledge-integrated systems. Therefore, intervention in the embedded systems industry, there must be a correct positioning. For example, the reason why Palm in the field of PDA more than 70% of the market, is because it is based on personal consumer electronics, focusing on the development of graphical interfaces and multitasking management; and the reason why the Wind River's Vxworks in the Mars rover to be able to apply, it is because of its high real-time and high reliability.
Embedded systems must be tailored to the application needs of hardware and software to meet the functionality, reliability, cost, size and other requirements of the application system. Therefore, if you can establish a relatively common hardware and software foundation, and then develop on it to adapt to a variety of needs of the system, is a better mode of development. The core of the current embedded system is often only a few K to dozens of K microkernel, according to the actual use of the function of the expansion or reduction, but because of the existence of microkernel, so that this expansion can be very smooth.