
66 Chapter 2 CPUs
encoding. Section 2.8 surveys techniques for CPU simulation. Section 2.9 intro-
duces some methodologies and techniques for the design of custom processors.
Choosing a CPU is one of the most important tasks faced by an embedded sys-
tem designer. Fortunately, designers have a wide range of processors to choose
from, allowing them to closely match the CPU to a problem’s requirements.
They can even design their own CPU. This section briefly looks at the metrics
used to evaluate embedded CPUs, before going on to look at some CPUs in
more detail.
2.2.1 Evaluating Processors
We can judge processors in several ways. Many of these are metrics. ...