Embedded System Design on a Shoestring [Paperback]

Lewin Edwards Lewin Edwards is an embedded engineer with over 15 years experience designing embedded systems hardware firmware and control software. (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0750676094 | ISBN-13: 978-0750676090 | Publication Date: May 27, 2003

In this practical guide, experienced embedded engineer Lewin Edwards demonstrates faster, lower-cost methods for developing high-end embedded systems. With today's tight schedules and lower budgets, embedded designers are under greater pressure to deliver prototypes and system designs faster and cheaper. Edwards demonstrates how the use of the right tools and operating systems can make seemingly impossible deadlines possible.

Designer's Guide to Embedded Systems Development shares many advanced, "in-the-trenches" design secrets to help engineers achieve better performance on the job. In particular, it covers many of the newer design tools supported by the GPL (GNU Public License) system. Code examples are given to provide concrete illustrations of tasks described in the text. The general procedures are applicable to many possible projects based on any 16/32-bit microcontroller. The book covers choosing the right architecture and development hardware to fit the project; choosing an operating system and developing a toolchain; evaluating software licenses and how they affect a project; step-by-step building instructions for gcc, binutils, gdb and newlib for the ARM7 core used in the case study project; prototyping techniques using a custom printed circuit board; debugging tips; and portability considerations. The accompanying CD-ROM contains all the code used in the design examples as well as useful open-source tools for embedded design.

·A wealth of practical tips, tricks and techniques
·Design better, faster and more cost-effectively
·Accompanying CD-ROM includes useful open-source tools for embedded design

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Shares many advanced, "in-the-trenches" design secrets to help engineers achieve better performance on the job!

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Newnes (May 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750676094
• ISBN-13: 978-0750676090
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #929,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #97 in Books > Computers & Technology > Hardware > Microprocessors & System Design > Microprocessor Design

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GNU/ARM Jump Start, August 19, 2003

By 

"embeddeddeveloper" (Carrollton, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Embedded System Design on a Shoestring (Paperback)

This is an excellent book. I bought it sight-unseen and have been very pleased. The book takes you step-by-step through bringup of an inexpensive ARM7 evaluation board, first using assembly and then using C language with the Newlib embedded C library. The freely available GNU tool chain is used, so you can get up and running without investing in big-ticket commercial development tools.

The book is based on the Atmel EB40 evaluation board. The pricing sweet spot no longer favors this board, so I bought the EB40A instead. I had to figure out differences in the memory map, PIO addresses for the LEDs, and USART clock enable, but this was straightforward after Google searches for the EB40A.

I highly recommend this book. The technical content is accurate, and it is well-written. It appears to be written by an embedded developer, for embedded developers. Other embedded books I have read recently seem organized around marketing objectives, and are over generalized. Those books are interesting but not very useful in the practical sense.

Edwards' book is useful in the practical sense. I hope he continues to write. I'm ready with my credit card when his next book is published.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, excellent depth and clarity.. voice of experience, May 13, 2007

By 

P. Wilson (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Embedded System Design on a Shoestring (Paperback)

This book was a speculative purchase, but it turns out to have been the best of the books I've bought in my search for ground up experience with ARM architecture embedded systems.. The level of the detail is just right, covering one of the most approachable ARM devices available and tackling the GNU compiler setup in just the depth I needed to get me going. My only issues are that the book could do with updating a little, this is going to be an unending task for the author due to the huge popularity of the ARM architecture and the huge number of vendors implementign variations of it.. I wanted an Intel/Marvell XScale PXA270 tutorial and this is as close as I think I'll get... a great buy.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Practical, to the point!, September 29, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Embedded System Design on a Shoestring (Paperback)

This book is a very practical, and effective guide in using low-cost tools for embedded system development. Extensive tips, and walk-throughs are given. It is a highly recommended hand-on book.