Michael J. Pont
EMBEDDED C
Addison Wesley, An imprint of Pearson Education, 2002
Softcover, pp. 304, plus XVI, $ 38.50
ISBN 0-201-79523-X
http://www.pearsoneduc.com

In general about the book

Many products we buy today on the market contain electronics, including portable media players, phones, cars, entertainment equipment, toys, etc. Unlike in standard computers, the electronics used in these types of equipment are deeply embedded and must interact with the user and the real world through sensors and actuators. Embedded systems usually have numerous modes of operation, must respond rapidly to exceptions, and posses a great deal of concurrency. Developing efficient embedded software requires a wide range of knowledge and skills. The programmers must have good understanding not only for the target algorithms and target processor's intricacies, but also program's overall performance behavior. Thus designing a complex embedded system poses a difficult problem for designers. In order to boost designer productivity, transition from assembly to some high level language, such is C, must take place in the embedded domain. This book helps a reader to enter the world of programming embedded systems, based on microcontroller 8051 as a heart of the system, as C. The book is divided into eleven chapters and Index. It comes with CD-ROM that includes Keil compiler, hardware simulator, and source code for all the examples presented in the book, and useful information about the 8051 microcontroller family.

Chapter content

Chapter 1 introduces a reader to the type of embedded systems (ESs) used in the book and the choice of programming language and operating system for ESs. In Chapter 2 the key features of the 8051 microcontroller are considered. Chapter 3 describes the concept how the operation of the 8051 can be simulated on a desktop PC. Different techniques for reading port pins and working with mechanical switches are discussed in Chapter 4. Three techniques related to how to create and use an object-oriented style of programming with C programs, how to create and use 'Project Header" and " Port Header" files, are discussed in Chapter 5. ESs are real-time systems. Bearing this in mind some important aspects involved in the accurate measurement of time are considered in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 deals with one of the key component of many embedded applications: the operating system. Chapter 8 covers details concerning implementation of two flexible system architectures, Multi-State (Timed) and Multi-Stated (Input/Timed) systems, used in embedded applications. Chapter 9 presents a technique: How to use 8051 features related to the serial interface. Chapter 10 considers the design and implementation of a small intruder alarm system. Finally, in Chapter 11 a review of the material presented in this book and suggestions for further study are given.

Useful for junior-level engineer and practitioners

System designers knew that the microcontroller is the crucial building block of any ES. With the growing technical and economic importance of ESs it is behooves just about every electronic engineer to learn more about this topic. This book provides a very readable material to the basic principles of designing ESs based on microcontroller 8051 and programming them with C. The text claims to be targeted towards junior-level electronic engineers and practitioners in the field of ESs design. Overall, this book is a useful addition to an ES designer's library.