In today's world, embedded systems are everywhere -- homes, offices, cars, factories, hospitals and consumer electronics. Their huge numbers and new complexity call for a new design approach that means a new hardware/software prototyping. An effective off-the-shelf prototyping platform gives you the power to quickly convert designs into working embedded systems. We present the traditionally distinct fields of software and hardware design in a new unified approach. It covers the cutting edge trends and challenges, introduces the design and use of application specific processors, general-purpose processors and digital signal processors, illustrates hardware/software tradeoffs using different examples: digital camera, analog camera, audio, video etc and discusses advanced computation models such as CrossWorks IDE, Code Composer Studio and modern design tools based on ARM, DSP and design platforms for cutting-edge wireless research. In addition to a prototyping platform, an off-the-shelf deployment solution saves you time and money by decreasing integration costs and reducing verification and certification expenses. You can easily move to a custom design and greatly reduce your time to market by using a combination of powerful software and rugged, deployable prototypes in a flexible platform.