Designing Hardware and Software for Reuse: A Handbook for Embedded Engineers and Programmers

by Michael Fowler

Design reuse refers to the development of a piece of a design, whether hardware or software, that can then be used in additional designs. Although reuse has been a standard in the software world for many years, it's a different story in the world of embedded systems, where roll your own has been the typical design philosophy. Conventional wisdom has maintained that each embedded system project has so many quirks and individual design features/limitations that trying to design hardware and/or software modules for reuse on many different designs would lead to dire consequences, such as using too much memory or unpredictable execution times. However, this picture is changing rapidly, as more and more complex controllers and systems-on-chip (SoCs) are being used in embedded designs, requiring more design time and overhead. Many manufacturers and designers of embedded products are now looking to design-for-reuse (DFR) techniques to save money ...

352 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2006