Characteristics of process improvement of hardware-related SW

High-speed digital signal processing requires sophisticated solutions for both software and hardware. Enabling software support and control over hardware functionality is a problem that will be emphasised as systems become more complex. Developing hardware-bound software is not, however, application development, and the related requirements cannot be covered in full by traditional software development processes. This paper describes experiences from the development of hardware-related software development processes at Nokia Networks. As most important characteristics of hardware-related software development, hard real-time requirements, experimental nature of work, documentation requirements, and the role of testing are presented. Characteristics of software process improvement in a hardware-dependent software environment are reported. As a result, a current-state analysis of hardware-related software development was made. Better understanding of the development processes was gained, facilitating further process improvement activities.