Component-based Software Is Becoming an Increasingly Popular Technology as a Means for Creating Complex Software Systems by Assembling

Since the first microkernel appeared, improving modularity and flexibility of operating systems, there has been support for application-specific operating systems (ASOS). This term is often used to refer to the ability for customization and reconfiguration to meet the requirements of specific applications or application domains. The general idea is to provide lower cost and higher performance by eliminating general-purpose operating system features that are unnecessary for the application, and possibly tailoring included features to better suit the application being developed. Embedded applications are proliferating at an amazing rate with no end in sight. They are present in many industries such as telecommunications, automotive, consumer electronics, medical instrumentation, and office automation. While each embedded application is unique, their success generally depends on the same criteria, such as costeffective variations and flexible operation of the product, minimal time to market, and minimal product costs. In most embedded applications, the use of general-purpose operating systems (GPOS) platforms is not applicable because it is too expensive. Embedded system requirements such as processor performance, memory, and cost are so variable that a GPOS cannot meet all the needs. Other approaches, such as avoiding an operating system altogether by implementing all the functionality directly, or by developing an in-house operating system, can limit flexibility and be expensive. However, a recent survey suggests that these approaches are used by 66 percent L. Fernando Friedrich