In almost all modern embedded systems, memory is organized into bytes. CPUs, however, process data as 8-, 16- or 32-bit words. As soon as this word size is larger than a byte, a decision needs to be made with regard to how the bytes in a word are stored in memory. There are two obvious options and a number of other variations. The property that describes this byte ordering is called “endianness” [or, sometimes, “endianity”].

Broadly speaking, the endianness in use is determined by the CPU. Because there are a number of options, it is unsurprising that different semiconductor vendors have chosen different endianness for their CPUs. The questions, from an embedded software engineers perspective are “Does endianness matter?” and “If so, how much?” … (more…)