This has been discussed somewhere in an earlier thread...

Java look-C at that? :))

:D sorry i but i think that's a really good pun there :))
mail me if u dint get it ;)

I think that the main reasons Java might be used are:

1>Internet Connectivity:-great for PDAs, cell phones and other mobile devices
However it may be much more than that- network connectivity may be the biggest advantage here, especially in the telecom environment... imagine a network of embedded processors on a global scale!!

2>Platform independence
If its the same at the microlevel as it is on PCs, the same code can be compiled to run on any odd platform that has the corresponding compiler (any OS/RTOS, any chip family)

3>Object-oriented programming- can't say what the advantage of this in embedded systems is though, besides easier programming. I think someone called Barry Kauler may have something to say about that...

4>Allows easier implementation of new protocols like BlueTooth etc.

5> I somewhat like the idea of applets in embedded sys - code in the ROM of one processor being executed by another processor, possibly of a completely different, application-specific family.
That way each component processor in a networked/multiprocessor system can be developed and implemented with great independence, and hence flexibility. i.e. the processor(slave or peer?) does not necessarily need to store the subroutines it has to execute in its own code memory

And about the real-time capabilities of JAVA...Since the JVM is an extra layer (code running on JVM running on OS-unless embedded java is different), java must be at least a little slower than C/assembly.
If embedded Java is not fast enough, maybe the critical processes can be handled by multi-tasked subroutines written in conventional C or assembly, and only the networking part need be handled by java. Or maybe you could use Java Native Interface (JNI) to run C/asm code

hmm... anything else? I'll post if i can think of anything else :)

Me, I've worked on all 3: asm,C,java, but I've used only asm in all my embedded projects, so maybe im talkin' a lot of garbage here... :D

Maybe you could check sun.java.com to see what they have to say about it

Kundi