Customer Reviews

Designing Embedded Hardware

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Some of the O'Reily books really shine and this is one of them. I'm an experienced hardware engineer, but I still got some good tidbits out of this book which is all the more impressive when you consider it's written for a relative beginner. The author does a nice job with both the content and writing style.

It covers many topics which are relatively common knowledge among experienced hardware designers but you rarely find in one book. Some of those topics I've never seen in ANY book. There's some good stuff here. That said, it's probably not the ideal book for someone who's already tackled a few successful embedded hardware designs.

This book is great for beginners. It is very informative and easy to read. I like the way the author describes timing diagrams seen in many microcontroller datasheets. I am impressed with his love for the ATMEL AVR microcontroller.
I used this book for a small PIC project.

While I don't know if I could build my own embedded device after reading just this book (I don't think I'd be able to this after pretty much any one book), I still felt like this book still delivered on that promise more so than any other single hardware book I've read. So many books gloss over details, either because knowledge is assumed (which is fine in many cases), or because the author doesn't have the detailed knowledge to begin with. And even when the data is in the book, far too often it's exactly that: book data, repackaged information from other sources (often books themselves). It's much better when the knowledge ultimately comes from the author's experiences. Most of the knowledge in this book really seems to be of the latter, and better, variety. I also thought the detailed introductions to a wide range of topics were 'just right' - not too high-level, so they glossed over important details or the underlying fundamentals of how the particular thing worked, but also not so low-level that they assumed knowledge I would have had to go find elsewhere. This goes for a lot of different protocols (RS-232, RS-422, SPI, I2C, USB, and so on) as well as technologies (what's a DSP exactly?).

This book aims at a very wide domain - embedded hardware/software. While most of the books out there on the market are concerned with design patterns, agile techniques and heavy methodologies for big projects, the largest software market is actually the embedded, with most processors manufactured, and most software written.

The author is an experienced embedded engineer and has knowledge both in hardware and software - it's the connecting line between these two that is the main subject of the book. Quite well written, many topics are covered - Electronics 101 (though not really on a beginner level - it runs too fast for that), some software - assembly language of various processors, microcontroller architectures, digital design and even soldering / breadboard creation.
It looks to be possible to build a small embedded computer just from the directions given in this book - which is very nice, and gives practical-headed readers something to play with. The author clearly enjoys what he's doing and it shows through his writing - this is a nice motivational boost, embedded design is indeed very interesting.

The crowd to enjoy the book the most will be people with some experience in either software or hardware (or both), who want to get into the exciting embedded field, or just bright and curious amateurs who want to build that heat-sensing remote control for their bathroom tub.

Some downsides of the book: the chapter on Forth is dubious. (Forth ??? Gimme a break...) The Electronics tutorial is just too fast. I doubt that people without any EE background will really understand it. For a beginner's book, there's too much options given in the processors chapters (about 4) - beginners like few options that are well explained. So a suggestion to the author for the next edition - drop Forth, drop a couple of processors, spend more time on electronics basics instead, and you'll have a truly great book.

I assume I'm the real target reader for this book. I've been programming microprocessors and microcontrollers for 20+ years now, but I'm a hardware dunce. The book starts pretty much from Square 1 of simple electronics. The challenge of writing such chapters is to remember what it's like for a raw novice. An author should explain things and not skip ahead.

What I really wanted this book for was the chapter on simple Electronics rather than all the rest. It could use work. Current is represented in equations as "I". The author neglects to mention that. He just springs it on you in an equation. He also doesn't explain how he got the formula for the voltage divider. It's presented as some "magic" formula when he should have taken just a few more steps to show how he got the formula (Ohm's Law, plus the bit about current in R1 and R2 being equal). Some of his other descriptions seem vague and incomplete (like inductors). That being said, I did learn stuff from that chapter so it was helpful.

I have a feeling many professionals are skipping this chapter and moving on to the meatier ones on how to hook stuff up, so their ratings are higher. There's some sage advice in the book (like disabling the brown-out voltage reset on 3.3V PICs as they are set at 4 volts!).

The emphasis is totally on hardware. You won't find any code listings for playing with the devices once it's hooked up, but that should be no problem for the intended audience. But if you were ever sitting there with a microcontroller in one hand and a DC motor on the other and wanting to know how to hook it all up, this is a good book for it.

This is a great beginners book from basic electronics up to developing for specific chips. I've been an application developer for years and I've been looking to make the switch to lower level programming. This book will definitely get you started and even walk you through the design of the beginners microprocessors (PIC & AVR).
As mentioned above, it should have "beginner" in the title.

This book is an exceptional text for anyone interested in electronics and microcontrollers. It provides all the basics and no prerequisites are required. It covers everything from Ohm's Law and resistors to the CAN bus and ethernet. The author also has a skill that few technical writers have: the ability not to bore you to death with the book. It reads well and is not drawn out, the author just gets to the point.

This is a practical introduction to embedded hardware, so to write software for the hardware presented in this book, you will need to consult other books. This book is only an introduction and if you want to gain more knowledge and experience in the field of hardware design, further study is required. In the first part of the book the author gives an introduction to computer architecture and describes the components that you find in a PC. The author goes on to explain basic electronics, just enough to understand the explanations about the electronic components. There are the basic equations to calculate voltage and current. The functionality of resistors, capacitors, inductors, diodes and crystals is explained. There is advice on how you can build or have built your own integrated circuit board. Some simple microprocessors and micro controllers are described including the currently available and commonly used PIC and AVR micro controllers, the 68000-series microprocessor and a DSP based controller. The functionality of the components is described and it is shown how the component can be used with a few other basic components to exercise a minimum of functionality. The book also covers useful topics like the protocols SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) and I2C, Inter Integrated Circuit, which show how components can communicate with each other or the outside world. Various serial port and network protocols are discussed like RS232C and USB. Chapter 13 was particularly interesting, covering analog to digital conversion and applications. For example, the book explains how to use an amplifier to connect a digital circuit to a temperature or light sensor, or a motor control. The one thing I did not like about the book was the dedication of an entire chapter to the ancient language of Forth. This space might have been better spent on expanding the book's discussion of assembly language or the more timely topic of embedded networks.
This book might be too elementary for practicing engineers, particularly if they are already familiar with the devices commonly used in embedded circuits. However, for those engineers that have been writing software since they graduated, this book is a good fast-paced introduction to the hardware commonly found in embedded systems. A good follow-on to this book is "Programming Embedded Systems with C and C++" by the same publisher.

I like this book because it talks briefly about different MICs and interfaces. I gained enough knowledge to build my own embedded computer. I would like to see more books from same author.

This book has some good information for the absolute beginner. Most of the information in this book should already be familiar to a person with some experience with Microcontroller development. Data sheets can be found on the Internet for most of the components described in this book. For everything related to the AVR Microcontroller, visit http://www.avrfreaks.net/. They have a GNU C compiler and some cool tools and links.