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Book Review
Introduction to Microprocessors and Microcontrollers, 2nd Ed, by John Crisp, Elsevier Science & Technology, 2004 ISBN 0-7506-5989-0
Reviewed by Brian Hook [brian.hook@analog.com]
True to its name, the text is an introduction that would serve well in an early undergraduate computer-engineering course. The author does a fine job of illustrating the fundamentals of digital hardware and the relationships with software at an introductory level. Readers with little or no engineering background can enjoy this book.
The organization of the book follows a conceptual path from simple entities to systems. While the book is not partitioned in the following way, a top-level view of the content would appear to be:
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Digital number systems, logic gates, registers and memories
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Microprocessor hardware and software components
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Examination of modern microprocessors
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Using a microprocessor/microcontroller.
The description starts with the CPU, dissects it in reasonable detail—inviting the reader to understand the interaction of software and hardware—then segues to programming and languages. The author describes assembly language in a way that clearly implies the existence of a need for higher-level descriptions, then immediately enters a chapter lightly describing such languages—from Basic to Java. Although the syntax of the languages is not covered, the overview of each is sufficient to inspire the reader to seek further information about a language of interest.
A chapter on the development of microprocessors opens the topic of performance and introduces the popular architectures in the context of a historical perspective. Finally, the modern architectures of PowerPC, Athlon XP, and the Pentium families are examined and their features are compared in an interesting way, making use of knowledge accumulated throughout the book.
The writing style is light, easy to follow, and generally enjoyable.
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