Design aspects of self-sufficient distributed MicroSystems

In the past the hardware, software and technology was often improved separately. With the advances of miniaturization the whole system is brought into sharper focus. The size reduction of small, highly integrated devices is strongly influenced by the coupling of the narrow positioned components. This requires a consideration of the different physical domains at the hardware design and software development taking into account technological constraints. The following section discusses some integrated aspects of system design for realizing self-sufficient micro systems. At the beginning of a micro system development, a reasonable system description specifies all relevant design parameters such as volume, costs and power consumption. For self-sufficient distributed micro systems, a partitioning into the four subsystems communication interface, environmental interface, data handling and energy supply can turn out to be useful. Thereby, several degrees of freedom and interdependences regarding the miniaturization will be introduced. This results in a concept on the general architecture. At the design phase after topological decisions the selected components and their interconnections have to be spatially arranged. Parallel, the layout has to be verified by a number of simulations and tests. The concept, the design and the verification phases may require several iterations, before the design is proved successfully and the prototypes meet the application requirements.