ARM system-on-chip architecture

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1. rramadassJul 2026
   What are some good books/resources on overall System-On-Chip Design?

   There is a surprising paucity of material on SoC design which are comprehensive and complete. Application-specific tailored features, Cost, Performance, Area, Power etc. all go into SoC design and yet there does not seem to be a comprehensive resource bringing everything together. Even wikipedia isn't detailed enough - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_on_a_chip

   I know of only two decent books viz. Computer System Design: System-on-Chip by Michael Flynn and Wayne Luk (this is pretty good) and the older ARM System-on-Chip Architecture by Steve Furber.

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2. pwaringMay 2016
   I'm not aware of a good free introduction to ARM assembly, but you could check out the reading lists from these courses:

   http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/COMP15111/syllabus... http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/COMP22712/syllabus...

   Despite its age, ARM System-on-Chip Architecture (Steve Furber) is still a good introduction to the processor and assembly (I'm re-reading it at the moment). ARM Assembly Language - an Introduction (J.R. Gibson) is worth reading if you want to learn ARM assembly.

   The materials page for COMP22712 also has some interesting resources, including the lab manuals and a small ARM assembler written in C (source is also on GitHub: https://github.com/uomcs/aasm). Unfortunately COMP15111 is now hosted on Blackboard so you can only get at the materials if you're a current student enrolled on the course.

   (I've been an undergrad, postgrad and staff in CS at Manchester, so I'm familiar with the courses - other universities may have similar resources with fewer access restrictions).

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3. MichaelCrawfordApr 2015
   For EE make sure you study at least some analog. At UCSC I took the analog class that was taught by the Physics department, with the aim of teaching us to build our own instrumentation for physics experiments.

   Dr. Dorfan pointed out that analog wasn't required for a EE degree. He said "I can see how they can design digital chips, but I can't understand how they get them to actually work."

   Consider problems like capacitive coupling, and hot spots due to frequently-used parts of your digital circuit being close together.

   Learn the assembly code of at least one instruction set architecture. Pointers will make a lot more sense then. These days I would advise that you learn ARM; Steve Furber's ARM System-on-Chip Architecture is quite good.

   Intel assembly may have more widespread application however it is far harder to make sense of than ARM.

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4. iuguyDec 2010
   I would agree. Some of the books I'd highly recommend for anyone looking to be a well-rounded hacker:

   * TCP/IP Illiustrated (Volumes 1,2 & 3) - W. Richard Stephens

   * The Web Application Hacker's Handbook - Stuttard, Pinto et al

   * The Shellcoder's Handbook - Kozoil, Aitel et al

   * The Cuckoo's Egg - Clifford Stoll

   * Neuromancer - William Gibson

   * ARM System-on-chip Architecture - Stephen B. Furber

   * Operating Systems Design & Implementation - Tanenbaum

   * The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System - McKusick, Neville-Neil

   These are just a few, and I'm sure there's plenty of others, even better ones. But to truly round yourself out you need to know more than programming a few languages - you need to know the low-level end of things and the high-level view of the world.

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5. pan69Apr 2010
   OK. These are the two books you need when you start out programming for ARM chips:

   ARM System-on-Chip Architecture (2nd Edition) By Steve Furber (the guy who designed the bloody chip!) http://www.amazon.com/ARM-System-Chip-Architecture-2nd/dp/02...

   ARM Architecture Reference Manual (2nd Edition) By David Seal http://www.amazon.com/ARM-Architecture-Reference-Manual-2nd/...

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6. nchongNov 2009
   In that case I fully recommend that you also check out Steve Furber's "ARM System-on-Chip Architecture" as a very readable introduction to ARM assembler and an easy way to learn about the microarchitecture and design philosphy of early ARM processors (ARM7 and ARM9) [Furber was one of the original engineers that worked on the first ARM design].

   The architecture has come along quite a bit since those days so if you'd like the most up to date release you need to look for the ARM v7AR Architecture Reference Manual which you can get (with a click-through) here: http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.ddi0406b/in...

   This will cover you up to the latest cores like Cortex-A8 inside the Beagleboard and Cortex-A9. Enjoy!

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