![]() To this end, I designed a dev board from scratch for each application processor reviewed. Except for some minor benchmarking at the end, once we get to a shell prompt, we’ll consider the job completed.Īs a departure from my microcontroller review, this time I’m focusing heavily on hardware design: unlike the microcontrollers I reviewed, these chips vary considerably in PCB design difficulty - a discussion I would be in error to omit. Getting a part booted is an entirely different ordeal altogether - that’s what we’ll be focused on. Your I2C drivers, your GPIO calls - even your V4L-based image processing code - will all work seamlessly.Īt least, that’s the sales pitch. That makes chips running embedded Linux almost a commodity product: as long as your processor checks off the right boxes, your application code won’t know if it’s running on an ST or a Microchip part - even if one of those is a brand-new dual-core Cortex-A7 and the other is an old ARM9. If my mantra for the microcontroller article was that you should pick the right part for the job and not be afraid to learn new software ecosystems, my argument for this post is even simpler: once you’re booted into Linux on basically any of these parts, they become identical development environments. Just like my microcontroller article, the parts I picked range from the well-worn horses that have pulled along products for the better part of this decade, to fresh-faced ICs with intriguing capabilities that you can keep up your sleeve. This article is targeted at embedded engineers who are familiar with microcontrollers but not with microprocessors or Linux, so I wanted to put together something with a quick primer on why you’d want to run embedded Linux, a broad overview of what’s involved in designing around application processors, and then a dive into some specific parts you should check out - and others you should avoid - for entry-level embedded Linux systems. There’s an occult consortium of engineering pros who drop these chips into designs with utter confidence, while the uninitiated cower for their Raspberry Pis and overpriced industrial SOMs. Massive shifts over the last few years have seen internet-connected devices become more featureful (and hopefully, more secure), and I’m finding myself putting Linux into more and more places.Īmong beginner engineers, application processors supplicate reverence: one minor PCB bug and your $10,000 prototype becomes a paperweight. The shoots typically bear leaves, which capture light energy and convert it into sugars by photosynthesis, providing the food for the tree's growth and development.After I published my $1 MCU write-up, several readers suggested I look at application processors - the MMU-endowed chips necessary to run real operating systems like Linux. Above ground, the branches divide into smaller branches and shoots. ![]() Below the ground, the roots branch and spread out widely they serve to anchor the tree and extract moisture and nutrients from the soil. For most trees it is surrounded by a layer of bark which serves as a protective barrier. This trunk typically contains woody tissue for strength, and vascular tissue to carry materials from one part of the tree to another. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk. It is estimated that there are just over 3 trillion mature trees in the world. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years. ![]() In looser definitions, the taller palms, tree ferns, bananas and bamboos are also trees. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old. Trees are not a taxonomic group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a woody trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |