Professional Embedded ARM Development

INTRODUCTION

IN THE WORLD OF EMBEDDED SYSTEMS, you can’t work for long without working on an ARM CPU. ARM CPUs are known for their low electric power consumption, making them ideal for mobile embedded systems. Since 2012, virtually all PDAs and smartphones contain ARM CPUs, and ARMs account for 75 percent of all 32-bit embedded systems and 90 percent of embedded RISC systems. In 2005, 98 percent of more than one billion mobile phones sold used at least one ARM processor. You can find ARM processors in mobile phones, tablets, MP3 players, handheld games consoles, calculators, and even computer peripherals such as Bluetooth chips and hard disk drives.

With more than 1 billion ARM processors shipped every 2 months, it is surprising to know that ARM does not actually make processors, but rather designs the core, and ARM partners use those designs to make their own processors, adding external devices and peripherals or modifying the core for speed or power consumption benefits. By working closely with manufacturers, ARM has created a huge ecosystem. The result is an amazing range of processors, used for all types of devices in all classes of devices, and all running using a common architecture, enabling developers to switch easily from one processor to another.

ARM processors are by no means tiny processors with limited performance; they range from micro-controller devices used in the smallest of systems all the way to 64-bit processors used in servers.

This book introduces you to embedded ...