Embedded System processors

Processors are the major part in embedded systems that take response from sensors in digital form and processing of this response to produce output in real-time processing environment is performed using processors.

For an embedded system developer it is essential to have the knowledge of both microprocessors and micro controllers.

Processors inside a system:

Processors inside a system have two essential units:

Control unit: This unit in processors performed the program flow control operation inside an embedded system. The control unit also acts as a fetching unit for fetching the set of instructions stored inside a memory.
Execution unit: This unit is used for execution the various tasks inside a processors. It mainly comprises of arithmetic and logical unit (ALU) and it also include a circuit that executes the instruction sets used to perform program control operation inside processors.

Types of processors:

Processors inside an embedded system are of the following categories:

Application Specific System Processor(ASSP): ASSP is application dependent system processor used for processing signal of embedded system. Therefore for different application performing task a unique set of system processors is required.
Application Specific Instruction Processor(ASIP): ASIP is application dependent instruction processors. It is used for processing the various instruction set inside a combinational circuit of an embedded system.
General Purpose Processor (GPP): GPP is used for processing signal from input to output by controlling the operation of system bus, address bus and data bus inside an embedded system.

Types of general purpose processor are: