9.6 Summary

Product development follows a sequence of steps starting with the Market Requirements Document to the Product Requirements, High-Level or System Design, Low-Level Design, Coding, Unit, Integration, and Testing. The steps may vary according to the organization, but there is a significant amount of process involved here.

Developers need not wait for the hardware to be ready to test their software. Simulators, either home grown or provided by the RTOS vendor, are often used. An OS Adaptation Layer is often used to isolate the communications software from the underlying RTOS so that it can be easily ported to multiple operating systems. COTS boards, along with development tools, can be used for the initial hardware-based testing. Finally, testing can be performed using several commercially available test equipment/tools via analysis and simulation.