Computers as Components, 2nd Edition

Preface to The First Edition

Microprocessors have long been a part of our lives. However,microprocessors have

become powerful enough to take on truly sophisticated functions only in the past

few years. The result of this explosion in microprocessor power, driven by Moore’s

Law, is the emergence of embedded computing as a discipline. In the early days of

microprocessors, when all the components were relatively small and simple, it was

necessary and desirable to concentrate on individual instructions and logic gates.

Today, when systems contain tens of millions of transistors and tens of thousands of

lines of high-level language code, we must use design techniques that help us deal

with complexity.

This book tries to capture some of the basic principles ...