Embedded Systems Design - July 2008 - (Page 45)

Name Ganssle BY Jack G.Here break points Hunting and gathering embedded systems resources very sophisticated way of shoving t least one bird species uses a packets around, but in fact it’s much twig to dig insects out of more. As a primary component of holes in trees. Some primates the Internet, it quite literally puts open hard shells with branches used food in hungry bellies. Save the as clubs. The Attini ant is quite literChildren (www.savethechildren.org) ally a farmer, cultivating patches of and a hundred other aid groups sofungus and exchanging fungi species licit donations online and help curwith other ant colonies. Clearly rent and potential donors see in near Homo sapiens is not the only species real time how a few dollars quite litthat uses tools to manipulate the enerally saves lives. vironment. Four billion years of evoYour company’s webcam lets dislution has produced creatures whose tant grandparents connect with their fitness for their place in an ecologidescendants, the numerically concal niche must be augmented by ustrolled milling machine reduces the ing and building things. cost of all sort of consumer prodTools are surely one of the definucts, a DVD player substitutes a tiny ing marks of our species. In 10,000 hunk of plastic for hundreds of feet years, we’ve gone from the wheel to of videotape built from the most the microprocessor, each invention a toxic of chemicals. The means to improve our lot in amount of good done by our life. The most efﬁcient engineers seek products far exceeds what we We engineers are today’s inventors, the creators of out and use solutions that already imagine, especially when we’re caught up in the drama many of the products that exist. Here are some good and frustration of getting the improve and change the life resources for embedded systems silly thing to market on of billions of our fellow Earth-dwellers. Most of the engineers searching for answers. schedule. And yet there are only a planet’s population must half-million of us producing now be aware of the microthese smart products. A mere handCheap datacomm is propelling processor; surely billions of lives ful of engineers whose impact has Third World nations into the global have been touched by embedded been quite profound. Perhaps this exchange of trade and lifting some products in one form or another. has always been true of the engineerfrom abject poverty. Remoteness no Just last week, I talked with a coming profession. When Roebling delonger isolates societies from the pany building tiny 5 kW microsigned the Brooklyn Bridge, cars computer age. processor-controlled generators for didn’t exist; could he have dreamed In our rush to build products, use in the smallest villages in Nepal. of the vast numbers of people who we forget to look on the impact of Spacecraft beam TV and other comwould use his concrete and steel ediour creations. Do you make routers? munications products to all but the fice to earn a living, feed their chilThat project might seem to be just a most remote African communities. dren, and pay the mortgage? Could De Lesseps foresee the vast impact of Jack G. Ganssle is a lecturer and consultant on embedded his Suez Canal? Did Jack Kilby and development issues. He conducts seminars on embedded Robert Noyce anticipate how intesystems and helps companies with their embedded challenges. Contact him at jack@ganssle.com. grating a few transistors onto a single chip meant devices could be smart, energy requirements reduced, www.embedded.com | embedded systems design | JULY 2008 A 45 http://www.savethechildren.org http://www.embedded.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Embedded Systems Design - July 2008

Embedded Systems Design - July 2008 Contents #Include Parity Bit Programming Pointers Interactive C-code Cleaning Tool Supports Multiprocessor SoC Design Building a Power Supply for Discontinuous Transmission Wireless Networks An Exception Primer Advertising Index Break Points Marketplace

Embedded Systems Design - July 2008

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