Customer Reviews

ARM System-on-Chip Architecture (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is an excellent overall compendium for the ARM processor core. This book is a must for anyone doing embedded design work that has never worked with an ARM core previously. Steve Furber presents the information in a very readable format, but technical enough to capture the important details. The book covers the basic design decisions that went into the ARM originally, the entire ARM family, and then goes on to explain how ARM cores get built into ASICs, and the tools and features of the ARM that make it one of the most powerful embedded cores in the biz.

Other topics include: ARM architecture, complete assembly language listing with explanations and bit encodings, organizational considerations like the ARM 3 and 5 stage instruction pipe-lines, the Thumb instruction set (ARM's answer to CISC code density advantage), peripheral memory and on-board cache considerations (like tuning the system clock to your RAM speed for optimal performance), and others. The book is worth every penny!

This is an excellent introductory book for the budding ARM programmer. I bought it because I am trying to learn more about programming for the GameBoy Advance, but that is only one of the many different devices that use the ARM.

For those who are scared by assembly language and the low-level details, this book is a good way to learn without being tossed into the fire.

If you already consider yourself an assembly wizz on another CPU, this book will give you a lot of the details that you might miss otherwise. For example, while the ARM can be coded for in a way similar to the popular x86 line, doing so can lead to very poor code.

The ARM chip is also RISC based, and in the past, RISC meant programmer unfriendly. This book shows you the insides of the most programmer friendly RISC chip you'll ever find.

I say that if you have any interest in programming for an ARM device (and believe me, there are plenty to program for), this should be on your shelf, right next to the documentation from the ARM web site.

I am trying to understand the eCos (embeddable Configurable OS by Red Hat) source code for the Cirruslogic edb7212 development board and this book was the perfect book to read. I'm slowly making headway into the code but without this book, it would have been much slower and much more painful. This book gave me a very good understanding of embedded systems - not just the processor but all the components in an embedded system.

One pleasant surprise was how few mistakes were in the book. I really grinded through the text and found very few mistakes.

I am first going to mention that I have moderate digital electronics, C, and (various type of)assembler experience, but also lack of knowledge when it comes to deep understanding of computer-specialised hardware.

Writer of the book is person who invented ARM (along with his colleague Sophie Wilson if I am correct). He is also very literate and doesn't write in riddles, like many programmers and engineers do.

You have to read book slowly and lot of times if you, like me, have insufficient knowledge from undergrad studies. Wikipedia helps, too.

The book is not full of flashy and obvious examples, but every sentence has meaning, every one is connected logically with previous. You should read it slowly.

This book is great, it's only flaw is testing the chip topic, where the difference between simulator and emulator isn't explained clearly and ICE is not well written in my opinion. Therefore four and half stars.

I am thankful to author because I have learned some things my professors just mentioned and that are from 'real world' and can be used in industry, not only to make tasks for exam.

This is one of the best technical books I've ever read. It is very easy to read, no nonsense, very practical and packed with lots of designer's secret you probably won't find elsewhere. Although many newer ARM cores had been designed since the publication in 8 years ago, the content of remain relavent, as there are still many designs based on ARM7 and ARM9 which are explained very detail in this book (some limited coverage on ARM10). Maybe the author just need to publish a Volume II to continue from this book left, rather than another edision.

This book isn't just for ARM user, I would recommend it to any engineer or graduate student who deal with microprocessor. Most microprocessor textbooks only tell you 'how' a processor or a bus work. This book tells you 'Why'. The author tells from his real design experience on how to improve the professor performance by using different pipeline, memory architecture, cache, bus etc.

Buy it, it is fun to read!

This book is very easy to read, but it also provides surprisingly quite detailed information that is sufficient to understand ARM chips' design and architecture. The book is almost self-contained although a little background in computer organization/architecture is helpful (but not necessary).

In 20+ years of software development on a host of different target processors I've seen all kinds of documentation. My current projects represent my first exposure to the ARM. I have found this book to contain everything almost everything I've needed. The only thing that I'd like to see the author add in the next edition is a better discussion on EABIs (Extended Application Binary Interface). This book is a very good source for anyone needing to understand the guts of the ARM processor for software related needs. It is one of the better sources I used over the years.

This IS a good book. Plenty of contents. It's better be used as a mix-purpose book as a guide material and a referrence. You'd better focus what you want if you don't have that much time. Otherwise it will be a very good spare time reading.

This is a really good book to have ! Real stuff !