Exploring C for Microcontrolle

If we accept the premise that an embedded engineer is made rather than born, then how does one go about making a good one? The authors of this book Exploring C for Microcontrollers: A Hands-on Approach are certainly “good ones”. Not only do they explore some of the influences that shaped themselves but they also try to shape “would-be” embedded engineers. Research and developmental acTIviTIes in embedded systems has grown in a significant proporTIon in the recent past. Embedded software design is not new to the world, but with the changing TIme, it has gained considerable momentum in the recent past, and many young engineers are strongly inclined to pursue their future in this field. The book is mainly targeted to these engineers who would like to understand in great depth the synergetic combination of hardware and software. The book is divided into eight chapters. Chapter 1 introduces a brief background about micro-controllers and explains how they are embedded into products commercially available in the market to emphasize the importance of these in the daily life of mankind. It also gives an insight into the architectural details and embedded system concepts for students’ projects to motivate them into this exciting field. The rest of the book concentrates on software development. The integrated development environment (IDE) is introduced in Chapter 2. Again the screen shots and step-by-step procedure will certainly make the students and engineers fully understand the development process. Chapter 3 differentiates the embedded C paradigm from the conventional ANSI C. Again the authors explain how to successfully overcome the memory and time constraints while developing an embedded C program. Chapter 4 gives an overview of program development for on-chip resources for MCS51 family of microcontrollers. Chapters 5–8 are devoted to live case studies. The book has come out with an elegant presentation to aspiring students and engineers from the teaching experience and technical knowledge the authors have put over a long time in this field. I strongly recommend this book for intermediate programmers, electronics, electrical, instrumentation engineers or any individual who is strongly inclinedto take up his or her career in embedded C programming. I am sure the reader will experience learning embedded programming by example and learning by doing. Last but not the least, this book will certainly be a value addition to the world of embedded programming.