Computers as Components, 3rd Edition

4.1 Introduction

In this chapter, we concentrate on computing platforms created using microprocessors, I/O devices, and memory components. The microprocessor is an important element of the embedded computing system, but it cannot do its job without memories and I/O devices. We need to understand how to interconnect microprocessors and devices using the CPU bus. The application also relies on software that is closely tied to the platform hardware. Luckily, there are many similarities between the platforms required for different applications, so we can extract some generally useful principles by examining a few basic concepts.

The next section surveys the landscape in computing platforms including both hardware and software. Section 4.3 discusses ...