NEW (January 2011)
Also see www.programmingembeddedsystems.com for a new book + virtual lab for disciplined time-oriented C programming of embedded systems

Overview

In today's world, embedded systems are everywhere -- homes, offices, cars, factories, hospitals, plans and consumer electronics. Their huge numbers and new complexity call for a new design approach, one that emphasizes high-level tools and hardware/software tradeoffs, rather than low-level assembly-language programming and logic design. This book presents the traditionally distinct fields of software and hardware design in a new unified approach. It covers trends and challenges, introduces the design and use of single-purpose processors ("hardware") and general-purpose processors ("software"), describes memories and buses, illustrates hardware/software tradeoffs using a digital camera example, and discusses advanced computation models, control systems, chip technologies, and modern design tools. Below is the table of contents of ESD. Furthermore, ESD intentionally does not cover the details of any particular processor, in large part because of the variety of setups used in embedded systems courses. Below, however, are extensive resources to assist teachers with the laboratory part of a course based on ESD. Presentation slides for each chapter can also be found, along with additional chapter resources.