SYMBIAN OSEmbedded Operating System

Atienza, Lemuel JayBacarra, Dan Paolo

Dulatre, Michael AngeloJimenez, John Edward

Llorca, Bryalle

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Origin/History1980

Psion founded by David Potter Handheld devices evolved

1984 Psion Organizer – the world’s first handheld

computer – launched1986

Vastly improved Psion Organizer II launches, with a simple-to-use database programming language, OPL (Open Programming Language)

Origin/History1987

Psion begins development of its SIBO (SIxteen Bit Organiser) family of devices and its own new multitasking operating system called EPOC to run its PDA products

1989 First EPOC16 devices, the MC400 and MC200, ship

with a primarily 1-bit, keyboard-operated graphical interface

Origin/History1990

Dramatic increase in use of mobile phones Psion Computers manufactured devices that were

PDAs1991

Psion produced the Series 3: a small computer with a half-VGA, monochrome screen that could fit into a pocket

Origin/History1996

Series 3c with additional infrared capability Psion started to design a new 32-bit operating

system that supported pointing devices on a touch screen, used multimedia and was more communication rich

Introduction of the system as EPOC Release 11997

The first version of EPOC32 Release 1 appeared on the Psion Series 5 ROM v1.0

Origin/History1997

EPOC32 operating system, at the time simply referred to as EPOC, was later renamed Symbian OS

1998 In June, Psion Software became Symbian : a major

joint venture between Psion and phone manufacturers Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia.

EPOC became known simply as Symbian OS

Origin/History1999

The Psion Series 5mx, Psion Series 7, Psion Revo, Diamond Mako, Psion netBook, netPad, GeoFox One, and Ericsson MC218 were released using EPOC Release 5

2000 The first phone : the Ericsson R380 was released

using ER5u (Symbian OS v5.1. u = Unicode) in November

Origin/History2000

Manufacturers were searching for a new & advanced operating system for its next generation of devices

Psion and the leaders in the mobile phone industry : including Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and Matsushita (Panasonic), formed a joint venture, called Symbian

Develop the EPOC operating system core, new core design was called Symbian OS

Origin/History2001

The first open Symbian OS phone : the Nokia 9210 Communicator, was released in June and Bluetooth support was added

Almost 500,000 Symbian phones were shipped in 2001, rising to 2.1 million the following year

Symbian OS debuted at version 6

Origin/History 2003

First shipment of Symbian OS 7.0 and 7.0s, an important Symbian release which appeared with all contemporary user interfaces including UIQ (Sony Ericsson P800, P900, P910, Motorola A925, A1000), Series 80 (Nokia 9300, 9500), Series 90 (Nokia 7710), Series 60 (Nokia 3230, 6260, 6600, 6670, 7610) as well as several FOMA phones in Japan

It also added EDGE support and IPv6 One million Symbian phones were shipped with the rate

increasing to one million a month by the end of 2003

Origin/History 2004

Psion sells its stake in Symbian Symbian OS version 8, enhanced the performance of

Symbian OS, particularly for its real-time functions 2005

Symbian OS version 9, added concepts of capability-based security and gatekeeping installation

Symbian OS version 9 also added the flexibility for hardware that Symbian OS version 7 added for software

Origin/History2006

Symbian helped bring forth the explosion of mobile device innovation—with Symbian software at the base of more than 100 million phones

2008 The next step of Symbian evolution took place, with

Nokia purchasing all Symbian assets and starting the software down the path to open source

Symbian acquired by Nokia; Symbian Foundation formed

Characteristics : ProcessingThreads

Threads : form the central unit of multitasking

Process is simply seen by the operating system as a collection of threads with a process control block and some memory space

Thread support in Symbian OS is based in the nanokernel with nanothreads

Characteristics : ProcessingNanothreads

Run in privileged mode and need a stack to store their runtime environment data

Cannot run in user mode Nanothreads can be in the following states:

Suspended Fast Semaphore Wait DFC Wait Sleep Other

Characteristics : ProcessingProcesses

Concepts of process state and process scheduling have already been defined by Symbian OS threads and nanothreads

Scheduling a process, then, is really implemented by scheduling a thread and initializing the right process control block to use for its data needs

Characteristics : ProcessingProcesses

Symbian OS threads organized under a single process work together in several ways:

First, there is a single main thread that is marked as the starting point for the process

Second, threads share scheduling parameters. Changing parameters, that is, the method of scheduling, for the process changes the parameters for all threads

Characteristics : ProcessingProcesses

Symbian OS threads organized under a single process work together in several ways:

Third, threads share memory space objects, including device and other object descriptors

Finally, when a process is terminated, the kernel terminates all threads in the process

Characteristics : Memory ManagementSystems with No Virtual Memory

Only storage available to the operating system on these platforms is memory; they do not come with a disk drive

Do not support a demand paged virtual memory Memory space used in most small platform

devices. Typically, have two types of storage: RAM and flash memory

Characteristics : Memory ManagementSystems with No Virtual Memory

RAM Stores the operating system code (to be used when the

system boots) flash memory

used for both operating memory and permanent (file) storage

it is possible to add extra flash memory to a device (such as a SD [Secure Digital] card), and this memory is used exclusively for permanent storage.

Characteristics : Memory ManagementSystems with No Virtual Memory

Absence of demand-paged virtual memory does not mean the absence of memory management

Smaller platforms are built on hardware that includes many of the management features of larger systems includes features such as :

Paging Address Translation Virtual /Physical Address Abstraction

Characteristics : Memory ManagementSystems with No Virtual Memory

Memory management consists of the following tasks:Management of application sizeHeap managementExecution in-placeLoading DLLsOffload memory management to hardware

Characteristics : Memory ManagementHow Symbian OS Addresses Memory

Symbian OS is a 32-bit operating system, addresses can range up to 4 GB

Symbian OS divides memory into virtual pages and physical frames

Symbian OS adopts a two-level page table strategy (shown in next slide)

Characteristics : Memory ManagementHow Symbian OS Addresses Memory

Symbian OS uses a two-level page table to reduce table access time and storage

Characteristics : Input/OutputDevice Drivers

Device driver in Symbian OS is split into two levels: A logical device driver (LDD)

Presents an interface to upper layers of software

A physical device driver (PDD)Interacts directly with hardware

Characteristics : Input/OutputKernel Extensions

Kernel extensions are device drivers that are loaded by Symbian OS at boot time

Provided for two reasons: First, it matches the object-oriented design abstractions

we have come to see as characteristic of microkernel design

Second, it allows the separate platforms that Symbian OS runs on to run specialized device drivers that enable the hardware for each platform without recompiling the kernel

Characteristics : Input/OutputDirect Memory Access

Device drivers frequently make use of DMA and Symbian OS supports the use of DMA hardware

DMA hardware consists of a controller that controls a set of DMA channels

Characteristics : Input/OutputSpecial Case: Storage Media

Media drivers are a special form of PDD in Symbian OS that are used exclusively by the file server to implement access to storage media devices

The file server in Symbian OS can support up to 26 different drives at the same time

Local drives are distinguished by their drive letter, as in Windows

Characteristics : Input/OutputBlocking I/O

Symbian OS deals with blocking I/O through active objects

The weight of all threads waiting on I/O event affects the other threads in the system

Active objects allow blocking I/O calls to be handled by the operating system rather than the process itself

Active objects are coordinated by a single scheduler and implemented in a single thread

Characteristics : Input/OutputRemovable Media

Removable media needs a controller, a driver, a bus structure, and will probably communicate to the CPU through DMA

Symbian OS provides software controllers that control each supported card

Symbian OS provides a series of events that occur when state changes happen

FeaturesClient-Server Architecture

In Symbian OS, clients are programs that have user interfaces, and servers are programs that can only be accessed via a well defined interface from other programs

Event Management Event management has long been considered core

strength of Symbian OS - reflecting the fact that Symbian OS was designed from the start to have event based time sharing in a single thread

FeaturesObject Oriented Design

Because Symbian OS has an object oriented design, it is easy to configure for different sorts of hardware, and being component based, it allows manufacturers to add or remove components

This will provide a stable base as the telecommunications industry moves from 2G to 2.5G to 3G to 4G, with the further introduction of new technologies such as SyncML, BlueTooth, and Multimedia Messaging amongst many

FeaturesPower Management

Symbian OS users are used to the performance of mobile phones - and so demand similar performance in terms of weight and operating times when they adopt new devices

Power management is built into the kernel of Symbian OS and is designed to make efficient use of the processors and peripherals and so minimize power usage

FeaturesRobust and Dependable

Devices should not lose user data, crash or require rebooting

Symbian achieves this in two ways:Each process runs in a protected address space,

thus it is not possible for one application to overwrite another’s address space. The kernel also runs in a protected address space, so that a bug in one application cannot overwrite the kernel’s stack or heap.

FeaturesRobust and Dependable

Symbian achieves this in two ways:The client-server architecture of Symbian OS

allows applications to exchange data without compromising overall system integrity. This meets the requirement to work on stand alone portable devices, even though Symbian devices offer greatly enhanced functionality over standard mobile phones.

Features Memory Management

For stand alone portable devices, memory management is important

The need to minimize weight, device size and cost means the amount of memory available on a Symbian OS device is often quite limited

Symbian OS always assumes that the memory available is limited, and minimizes consumption at every turn

Consequently, less memory is actually required by the system also having less memory helps to keep down power consumption

FeaturesFull Multitasking

Symbian OS runs each application as a separate process, allowing multiple applications to run concurrently

An Open Operating System Symbian OS is an open OS

Open to anyone to license Open to anyone to develop application Based on open standards Owned by the industry

Strengths Memory Management

The absence of demand-paged virtual memory does not mean the absence of memory management, smaller platforms are built on hardware that includes many of the management features of larger systems

Execution in-place Platforms with no disk drives usually support execution in-

place Flash memory is mapped into the virtual address space

and programs can be executed directly from flash memory, without copying them into RAM first

WeaknessNo Virtual Memory

The only storage available to the operating system on these platforms is memory; they do not come with a disk drive

Smaller systems, from PDAs to smartphones to higher level handheld devices, do not support a demand paged virtual memory

Example of Applications where the Symbian OS is being used

Nokia Series 80 interface Nokia 9210 Communicator smartphone (32-bit

66 MHz ARM9-based RISC CPU) (2001), 9300(2004), 9500 Communicator (2004) using the Nokia Series 80 interface

UIQ interface Used for PDAs such as Sony Ericsson P800

(2002), P900 (2003), P910 (2004), P990 (2005), W950 (2006), M600 (2006), P1 (2007),W960 (2007), G700 (2008), G90 (2008), G702 (2008), Motorola A920, A925, A1000, RIZR Z8, RIZR Z10, DoCoMo M1000, BenQ P30, P31 and Nokia 6708 using this interface

Example of Applications where the Symbian OS is being used

Nokia S60 (2002) interface Nokia S60 is used in various phones, the first being the Nokia 7650,

then the Nokia 3650, followed by the Nokia 3620/3660, Nokia 6600,Nokia 7610, Nokia 6670 and Nokia 3230

The Nokia N-Gage and Nokia N-Gage QD gaming/smartphone combos are also S60 platform devices

It was also used on other manufacturers' phones such as the Siemens SX1, Sendo X, Panasonic X700, Panasonic X800,Samsung SGH-D730, SGH-D720 and the Samsung SGH-Z600

Example of Applications where the Symbian OS is being used

Nokia S60 (2002) interface Recent, more advanced devices using S60 include the Nokia 6620,Nokia 6630,

the Nokia 6680, Nokia 6681 and Nokia 6682, Nokia 6120 classic, Nokia 6121 classic, Nokia 6220,a next generationNseries, including the Nokia N70, Nokia N71, Nokia N72, Nokia N73, Nokia N75, Nokia N76, Nokia N77, Nokia N78, Nokia N79, Nokia N80, Nokia N81, Nokia N82, Nokia N85, Nokia N90, Nokia N91, Nokia N92, Nokia N93, Nokia N95, Nokia N96 and Nokia N97

The enterprise (i.e. business) model Eseries, including the Nokia E50, Nokia E51, Nokia E60, Nokia E61, Nokia E62, Nokia E63, Nokia E65,Nokia E66, Nokia E70, Nokia E71, Nokia E71x, Nokia E78, and Nokia E90 and some of the models of Nokia Xpress music mobiles likeNokia 5320, Nokia 5700, Nokia 5800 and Nokia 5530 XpressMusic

Nokia Series 90 interface Nokia 7710 (2004) using the Nokia Series 90 interface

Screenshots

Symbian OS Logo Historic Formation of Industry for Symbian

A screenshot of the UIQ 3 pen-based interface on the P990

Screenshot of a typical Nokia S60 user interface