The Koala component model for consumer electronics software

Most consumer electronics today contain embedded software. In the early days, developing CE software presented relatively minor challenges, but in the past several years three significant problems have arisen: size and complexity of the software in individual products; the increasing diversity of products and their software; and the need for decreased development time. The question of handling diversity and complexity in embedded software at an increasing production speed becomes an urgent one. The authors present their belief that the answer lies not in hiring more software engineers. They are not readily available, and even if they were, experience shows that larger projects induce larger lead times and often result in greater complexity. Instead, they believe that the answer lies in the use and reuse of software components that work within an explicit software architecture. The Koala model, a component-oriented approach detailed in this article, is their way of handling the diversity of software in consumer electronics. Used for embedded software in TV sets, it allows late binding of reusable components with no additional overhead.