Deeply embedded applications are commonly found across a broad range of markets. Key markets

　　include automotive applications， specifically car chassis and braking systems. Products such as hard

　　disk drives， wireless modems， printers and home gateways are all essentially consumer products and

　　recent， strong consumer demand has resulted in increased processor shipments for many of these

　　markets.

　　Market projections suggest that the entire deeply-embedded opportunity will reach in excess of 1.25

　　billion units per year by 2008.

　　Understanding the Needs of Deeply Embedded Applications

　　The common requirement across many deeply embedded products is to achieve optimum

　　performance at the lowest possible cost. Selecting a design platform of much higher performance

　　than the application requires can result in unnecessary expense and power dissipation， leading to an

　　uncompetitive product.

　　For embedded CPU systems this presents an additional challenge - the need to compete on providing

　　the lowest possible program cost to the end user. This has implications not only for individual unit

　　cost， but significantly impacts upon the broader design picture