Programming XC on XMOS Devices Book

This book is an indispensable practical guide for embedded engineers, and educators of concurrent programming and the XMOS architecture. It provides a standalone reference that blends techniques from both hardware and software design, and shows how the XC language is being used to program the world's electronics. The XMOS architecture enables a combination of interface, digital signal processing and control functions to be programmed in software, all in a single device. XMOS devices integrate one or more XCores, each comprising an event-driven multi-threaded processor with predictable real-time performance alongside tightly integrated I/O and on-chip memory. XC enables designers to leverage the unique capabilities of the XMOS architecture. It provides extensions to C that simplify control over concurrency, I/O and timing. XC programming is efficient, robust and easy to learn, as programs are free from many sources of deadlock, race conditions and memory violations. The main chapters of the book form a tutorial on how to write XC programs. Basic concepts such as ports, channels and clocks are first introduced, followed by case studies that demonstrate their use in real-world designs such as an LCD screen driver and the Ethernet MII protocol. The chapters are complemented by appendices that provide the official XC language specification and details of its implementation on the XS1 family of XMOS devices.Read More