Designing Embedded Hardware

Part II. Embedded Processors and Systems

Part II takes a look at several microprocessors used in embedded systems, ranging from the very tiny to machines with significant processing power.

Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 introduce you to two microcontroller architectures, the Microchip PIC and the ATMEL AVR. Their internal architectures vary considerably, but from a hardware viewpoint, they are similar. These two processor families are so simple that building a computer based upon them is trivial, as you will see. In the AVR chapter, you’ll also learn about bus interfacing, developing valuable skills that will carry over for the other processors presented in this book.

In Chapter 7, I’ll look at processor architecture using the Motorola 68000 series as an example. The 68000 is a powerful, widely used midrange processor suitable for a variety of embedded and control tasks.

From there, I go on to look at an unusual, yet powerful, processor family, the Motorola DSP56800, in Chapter 8. These processors are ideally suited to computationally intensive applications since they are adept at executing complex algorithms quickly and efficiently.

Since this is a book about hardware, we won’t look at instruction sets. The processor datasheets give good coverage of the instructions, or you may choose to write your software in C or Forth, rather than assembly. In either case, a detailed look at software is beyond the scope of this book. You might like to refer to Michael Barr’s excellent book Programming ...