ARM System Developer's Guide: Designing and Optimizing System Software (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) [Hardcover]

Andrew Sloss (Author), Dominic Symes (Author), Chris Wright (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1558608745 | ISBN-13: 978-1558608740 | Publication Date: April 8, 2004 | Edition: 1

Over the last ten years, the ARM architecture has become one of the most pervasive architectures in the world, with more than 2 billion ARM-based processors embedded in products ranging from cell phones to automotive braking systems. A world-wide community of ARM developers in semiconductor and product design companies includes software developers, system designers and hardware engineers. To date no book has directly addressed their need to develop the system and software for an ARM-based system. This text fills that gap.

This book provides a comprehensive description of the operation of the ARM core from a developer's perspective with a clear emphasis on software. It demonstrates not only how to write efficient ARM software in C and assembly but also how to optimize code. Example code throughout the book can be integrated into commercial products or used as templates to enable quick creation of productive software.

The book covers both the ARM and Thumb instruction sets, covers Intel's XScale Processors, outlines distinctions among the versions of the ARM architecture, demonstrates how to implement DSP algorithms, explains exception and interrupt handling, describes the cache technologies that surround the ARM cores as well as the most efficient memory management techniques. A final chapter looks forward to the future of the ARM architecture considering ARMv6, the latest change to the instruction set, which has been designed to improve the DSP and media processing capabilities of the architecture.

* No other book describes the ARM core from a system and software perspective.
* Author team combines extensive ARM software engineering experience with an in-depth knowledge of ARM developer needs.
* Practical, executable code is fully explained in the book and available on the publisher's Website.
* Includes a simple embedded operating system.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The ARM architecture has enabled a rich set of new applications on increasingly powerful wireless platforms. Media-rich applications such as 3D games, camera and videophones, location-based services and connected portable music and video devices are enabled by next generation CDMA phones executing on the ARM architecture.

Developing embedded software for these platforms requires a knowledge of the underlying architecture, and programming practices which balance power, cost and performance efficient. Sloss provides a comprehensive and practical guide to the development of "hardware aware" software which meets the demanding constraints of these applications. Highlighted with practical examples, and enhanced by a thorough treatment of topics such as ISRs, code optimization, and DSP on ARM, this book is essential for every embedded software and hardware engineer alike."

-J. Scott Runner, Senior Staff Engineer/Manager, Qualcomm CMDA Technologies, Qualcomm Inc.

"This book has a place on the desk of every engineer developing software for the ARM processor; it is a thorough introduction for newcomers, and a useful reference for the ARM expert.

The technical information in this book is aimed squarely at the software developer, you'll find advice on bringing a device up from a bare board, reference information describing the characteristics of all current ARM architectures, and many valuable tips for optimizing code running on ARM cores.

I have been using this book since reviewing the first draft, and can recommend it to anyone who wants the get the best out of their ARM Powered products."

-Peter Maloy, CodeSprite Inc.

"This book provides an excellent introduction to the ARM architecture. It describes important architectural features in detail. It also makes great use of examples to illustrate those features and put them in context."

-Wayne Wolf, Princeton University

Book Description

A comprehensive guide to one of the most popular architectures in the embedded systems and SOC industry.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 689 pages
• Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (April 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558608745
• ISBN-13: 978-1558608740
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #170,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #18 in Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware > Microprocessors & System Design > Microprocessor Design
  • #68 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Software Engineering > Design Tools & Techniques

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars If your company will buy it for you, get it, March 14, 2005

By 

JLC "xqusame" (Dallas, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ARM System Developer's Guide: Designing and Optimizing System Software (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (Hardcover)

In the ARM tradition of charging for everything, the firmware guide by Sloss is easy to read, and comprehensive up to ARM10/StrongARM XScale/926/940. That said, the book looks like the notes from a firmware lecture delivered by an Arm Apps engineer. The book is strongest in coverage of MMU and cache, but weak on ARM11 (1136 only and as a final chapter) and essentially non-existent in Jazelle coverage. Nice features are the toy RTOS which appears early at reappears with more features (memory protection, and MMU, for example). That this book is so quickly out of date brings the point that MDR bulleted last year, that the ARM family needs birth control but that is a topic for another discussion. Sloss' book has 'non-commercial license' for all the sourcecode. huh? Regarding this book, Freescale for example publishes equivalent information (old ESS manuals) in the 860/8260 training manuals for free, on their website. If your company pays for your books, by all means have them get the sloss book for you it makes a great read on the john, but if you are a student or independent developer, you would be as well served by studying the ARM ARM and applicable ARM source code for U-Boot, Redboot and the L4 microkernel, or even Ed Sutter's book, with the added benefit that you would have a license to use the code in your project.

36 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book for ARM's firmware programmers so far, August 6, 2004

By 

lethalgambit (Earth) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ARM System Developer's Guide: Designing and Optimizing System Software (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (Hardcover)

There are many books on ARM's architecture or manual references. So far, this book is the only book which concentrates on the firmware development side. Both assembly language and C are discussed, which is a relief for embedded/firmware engineers like me who like to combine both languages in a project.
The 15 chapters in the book are:
1- ARM Embedded Systems
2- ARM Processor Fundamentals
3- Introduction to the ARM instruction set
4- Introduction to the Thumb instruction set
5- Efficient C Programming
6- Writing and Optimizing ARM assembly code
7- Optimized Primitives
8- Digital Signal Processing
9- Exception and Interrupt Handling
10- Firmware
11- Embedded Operating Systems
12- Cache
13- Memory Protection Units
14- Memory Management Units
15- The Future of the Architecture
The strength of this book lies on the extensive examples on how to program ARM effectively. It is a nice guide for those who want to learn ARM programming style.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars extremely useful, April 14, 2006

By 

E. Boks "Ewout" (Arnhem, Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ARM System Developer's Guide: Designing and Optimizing System Software (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Computer Architecture and Design) (Hardcover)

This book covers many aspects of programming the ARM familiy, including a surprisingly thorough discussion on fixed-point DSP computation.

Having come from another architecture, this book really got me going on ARM. It complements the documentation manufacturers usually provide for their ARM chips in that it covers the ARM core much more in-depth.

The book discusses everything from register usage to memory management units. If you want to become an expert programmer in C/Assembly on ARM systems, you must buy this book.

Also included is a nice comparison of the ARM and Gnu assembler directives, which came in handy when I converted an ARM assembly file to the Gnu syntax.