I am involved with an embedded software development for telecom industry. I have zero experience before with such embedded hardware devices.
I got a network processor board, which is featured in switching pipeline engines. Besides the board, there is also an accessory board called "piggy"(seems for ethernet connetion), and another serial line connection.
I am completely lost about these boards and serial line connections. what they are used for? I tried to use google to find some useful introduction or materials but failed. Can anyone point out what this piggy board is used for? Any good references or books that explain about this?
Thanks a lot!!
To develop for your embedded system you will need a development host (a PC or workstation that hosts the development tools including cross-compiler, platform libraries, debugger etc.), and a debug connection to the target (typically an in-circuit emulator or JTAG debugger, but in some cases debug over serial, USB or Ethernet may be supported via software running on the target - though that is less reliable since the code you are debugging may corrupt or break the debug stub running on the same target).
When you have got that together and can build, load and run code on the target, you may then be in a position to ask a more specific question. Writing code for this platform will depend on many things such as processor type, programming language, target operating system (if any), real-time performance requirements, regulatory standards, product type standards etc.
With respect to how to access your specific hardware, then no one can tell you that without access to the documentation and hardware schematics, and you cannot do anything with it yourself without that. Some knowledge of electronics will be a distinct advantage in most cases.