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Reviewer: Wei-Ming Hu

How to write embedded and systems software for the ARM processor family is described in this book. Although generally useful, the material is particularly suitable to those who need to write systems-level and embedded software for the ARM. The chapters can be grouped into three major topics: processor instruction set, optimized algorithms for ARM, and operating systems programming. The book starts with the processor architecture, the 32-bit instruction set, and the more compact 16-bit Thumb instruction set. The authors then describe how to write efficient C and assembly language code. As part of this, the authors give readers tips on how to write assembly code that optimally schedules instructions, uses registers, and performs control flow operations cheaply. The examples, including a small operating system described later, are available on the book's Web site. The authors describe how to efficiently implement some commonly used operations. These include division, reciprocals, roots, exponentiation, trigonometric functions, bit operations, and the generation of pseudo-random numbers. After this, the authors describe how to write digital signal processing (DSP) applications using the ARM processor. The authors describe the representation of analog waveforms, and then present algorithms to compute common DSP functions, such as the dot-product, filters, and the Discrete Fourier Transform. Systems issues, such as exception and interrupt handling, and systems initialization and bootstrapping are covered in the last part of the book. This is followed by discussions of memory hierarchy. The authors start by describing cache organization and cache control operations, such as locking code and data in cache, and cleaning and flushing the cache contents. They proceed on to a discussion of how to set up memory protection, and how to use memory management units. The latter includes an example of a virtual memory implementation. The book concludes with a set of appendices on the instruction sets, and other references. The book covers more than the instruction set; the authors succeed in giving readers a good understanding of how to program the ARM processor. The authors do this by providing many well-worked and relevant examples. I particularly liked the chapters that describe how to implement common math operations, and DSP applications. These examples present both the algorithms, and specific optimizations that take advantage of the ARM processor architecture. Similarly, the chapters on memory protection and management are also very clear, and are effective in illustrating and reinforcing their respective topics. It is worthwhile to note that the book is applicable to the entire ARM family. Where there are differences, the authors took care to explain how the code would change depending on the ARM implementation. In summary, I believe that reading this book will help you become a better ARM programmer. Online Computing Reviews Service