Stability analysis of an aperiodic sampled-data control system is considered for application to networked and embedded control. The stability condition is described in a linear matrix inequality to be satisfied for all possible sampling intervals. Although this condition is numerically intractable, a tractable sufficient condition can be constructed with the mean value theorem. Special attention is paid to tightness of the sufficient condition for less conservative stability analysis. A region-dividing technique for the reduction of conservatism and generalization to stabilization are also discussed. An example demonstrates the efficacy of the approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.