Programming Embedded Systems in C and C++

151

Glossary

ASIC

Application-Specific Integrated Circuit. A piece of custom-designed hardware

in a chip.

address bus

A set of electrical lines connected to the processor and all of the peripherals

with which it communicates. The address bus is used by the processor to

select a specific memory location or register within a particular peripheral. If

the address bus contains n electrical lines, the processor can uniquely address

up to 2

n

such locations.

application software

Software modules specific to a particular embedded project. The application

software is unlikely to be reusable across embedded platforms, simply because

each embedded system has a different application.

assembler

A software development tool that translates human-readable assembly lan-

guage programs into machine-language instructions that the processor can

understand and execute.

assembly language

A human-readable form of a processor’s instruction set. Most processor-specific

functions must be written in assembly language.

binary semaphore

A type of semaphore that has only two states. Also called a mutex.

board support package

Part of a software package that is processor- or platform-dependent. Typically,

sample source code for the board support package is provided by the package

152 Glossary

developer. The sample code must be modified ...