Embedded System Design on a Shoestring: Achieving High Performance with a Limited Budget (Embedded Technology) by Lewin Edwards

by Lewin Edwards

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

Paperback

First published May 27, 2003

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty good book for embedded system design. I still prefer Karim Yaghmour's Building Embedded Linux Systems, though they offer slightly different styles of advice.

This book gives great advice and a lot of general information with one problem: the technical stuff is a little too general. He does a brief walkthrough of basic development and with the magic of the internet you can fill in the blanks.

I have one huge complaint: I've used tons of Atmel products as well as from other companies and I freaking hate Atmel and their "Errata" section at the end of every datasheet I've read from them. They are, by far, the worst in my experience.

The worst part is he used one of their products and even had to write about how to work-around one of their errors. Yeah, I know he picked this board because it was cheap for hobbyists but you get what you pay for.