Computers as Components, Second Edition: Principles of Embedded Computing System Design (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) | 
 enlarge | Author: Wayne Wolf
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
Category: Book
List Price: $79.95
Buy New: $52.50
You Save: $27.45 (34%)
New (34) Used (8) from $41.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 356957
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.5 x 1.5
ISBN: 0123743974
Dewey Decimal Number: 004.16
EAN: 9780123743978
ASIN: 0123743974
Publication Date: June 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
This book was the first to bring essential knowledge on embedded systems technology and techniques under a single cover. This second edition has been updated to the state-of-the-art by one of the most recognizable names in embedded systems design. Researchers, students, and savvy professionals schooled in hardware or software design, will value Wayne Wolf's integrated engineering design approach.
* Uses real processors (ARM processor and TI C55x DSP) to demonstrate both technology and techniques...Shows readers how to apply principles to actual design practice.
* Covers all necessary topics with emphasis on actual design practice...Realistic introduction to the state-of-the-art for both students and practitioners.
* Stresses necessary fundamentals which can be applied to evolving technologies...helps readers gain facility to design large, complex embedded systems that actually work.
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| Customer Reviews:
explains hierarchy of design, from devices to operating system January 26, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
The average person in the US now uses a computer. Typically running a Microsoft operating system or unix or linux. Yet there is an entire ecosystem of embedded computers out there, invisible to most people. Wolf's text explains how you can program such computers as well as design the circuitry in which they might exist. Here, "computer" in the book essentially means microprocessor plus some off-chip memory. The book surveys two main microprocessor families - ARM and SHARC. These are not the most common microprocessors. (Which might be by Motorola.). But Wolf chooses them to illustrate different design ideals for their instruction sets.
One nice thing about the book is that you get a direct grasp of the hierarchy of design and logic. Climbing from the low level devices of latches, gates, flip-flops and the like, to the microprocessor and its machine language, to the corresponding and far easier to use assembly language. Then, upwards to an operating system.
Good intro to embedded development January 28, 2006
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Do you know what percentage of all computers run Windows or some kind of Unix? Guess. I'll give you the answer later.
This book is about all the other computers out there - the ones in your car's airbags and antilock brakes; in your watch, cellphone, TV and its remote, CD player, and computer keyboard; in your implanted defibrillator.
Wolf starts with an introduction in terms of a personal-scale, practical example. Next he goes into what a CPU is in lots more detail than most programmers ever think about - the kind of detail you need when the CPU interacts so intimately with the other components in the system. Maybe you never heard of the ARM or SHARC processors (unless you already do embedded work), but they're good representative choices. ARM is an incredibly common core architecture, with supervisor mode and memory mapping, what it takes to run a "real" OS, whether it does or not. SHARC is a signal processor - a real processor, but with extras for fast artihmetic processing. Together, the two stand adequately for a large fraction of the embedded processors in use.The next chapter goes over hardware basics: the bus, memory mapped IO, interface issues, and in-circuit debugging.
The rest of the book generally covers higher level issues: software design, embedded and real-time OSs, coprocessors, and networks. Although coverage of IIC and similar board-level communication is good, I found the ethernet discussion weak. Anyone working at this level is likely to need 802.2 protocols, which I did not see mentioned. The book's strengths far outnumber its occasional soft spots, though.
Embedded computing is a huge, many faceted field, so no book can cover more than a tiny fraction of what it means. Still, this addresses a broad, useful range what you need to program 99% of the computers out there - because only about 1% run Windows or Unix.
//wiredweird
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