The Architecture of the Arm Microprocessors a Resource Guide

This book presents an overview of the ARM history and architecture, from the 1980's legacy Advanced RISC Machine, to today's 64-bit multicore units. The applications for the ARM in embedded systems is presented, as well as arm-based system-on-a chip designs. Software for the ARM is presented mostly JAVA, as are specialized architectures for vector floating point and media processing. The Thumb, NEON, and Jazelle extensions are discussed. The applications of the ARM architecture onboard spacecraft is explored, with a brief introduction to unique challenges of the space environment. Vector floating point and multicore instantiations of SIMD are covered. System simulation and debugging are discussed. Arm has proven to be a popular architecture for inexpensive Cubesats. Yearly, billions of the ARM chips are sold. They are present in computer tablets, set-top boxes, phones, automobiles, airplanes, locomotives, routers, household appliances, medical devices - every electronic device imaginable. Understanding of the ARM architecture is critical to understand today's electronic ecosystem. Appendices present selected computer architecture topics such as I/O, floating point, cache, and the fetch/execute cycle in some depth. An extensive glossary and bibliography are included.