Chapter 1: A Hard Start

Overview

Although the primary focus of this book is firmware development, a good firmware developer must have a reasonable understanding of the hardware on which the firmware resides. You could compare a firmware programmer to someone who changes oil at a gas station: if all that person knows is how to perform an oil change, he wont have the skills to notice warning signs that a fully trained mechanic would pick up right away. A narrowly trained technician may change the oil competently but not notice other problems like a leaky head gasket. Sooner or later something else will go wrong, remain unnoticed, and cause additional trouble due to the technicians limited knowledge.

This chapter explains what a firmware engineer needs to know about the hardware in a typical system. The goal is not to turn you into a hardware designer but simply to explain enough so that you can do more than change the oil. To achieve this goal, this chapter discusses some of the common CPU support peripherals and examines how the hardware processor does its job. I will start by focusing in on the type of system that this book addresses.You will learn about some of the most common features of todays microprocessor-based systems, some of which reside within the CPU silicon itself and others which are usually external to the CPU. I will also discuss the sequence of steps that the CPU takes to retrieve an instruction and the advantages and snags that are introduced by the use of cache.

At the end of this chapter (although you will still not be a qualified hardware designer) you will hopefully have a better understanding of the hardware platform onto which you will be installing your firmware.



Embedded Systems Firmware Demystified
Embedded Systems Firmware Demystified (With CD-ROM)
ISBN: 1578200997
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 118
Authors: Ed Sutter

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