Moore’s law is well known in the electronics industry; it states that the number of transistors roughly doubles every two years. Since 1965 Moore’s law has proven to be true and the capabilities of digital electronics has enjoyed an exponential growth in capability. The embedded systems industry has greatly benefited from the growth in capabilities … Continue reading The Silent Firmware Revolution
Year: 2019
Using strstr to Parse JSON Messages
When I first started to write embedded applications in C, microcontrollers were not very powerful, and we rarely ever parsed or worked with human readable text. Instead, we often generated packetized data where each byte in the message represented some specific type of information that we would then quickly decode on the fly as it … Continue reading Using strstr to Parse JSON Messages
Getting Started with JSON for Embedded Developers
For decades embedded software developers worked on products that were stand-alone and did not require any internet access. Over the past decade or so, the number of products that are connected to the internet has grown exponentially and with it, embedded developers have been forced to learn the underlying technologies required to communicate in a … Continue reading Getting Started with JSON for Embedded Developers
10 Pain-free Steps to Configure an Interrupt Controller
Properly setting up interrupts on a microcontroller isn’t easy. The number of times an engineer has setup interrupts in their career doesn’t seem to make a difference. Configuring interrupts always has some gotcha hidden away that leaves the developer scratching their head and seeking answers in an obscure data sheet or online code snippet. Thankfully … Continue reading 10 Pain-free Steps to Configure an Interrupt Controller
The Key Factor Being Ignored by IoT Developers
If you’ve been paying attention to the progress being made on the IoT, you’ve heard about the billions of IoT devices that are currently connected and the fact that in the next decade, experts expect to see over a trillion devices connected. A trillion devices. That is just mind boggling especially considering that standards are … Continue reading The Key Factor Being Ignored by IoT Developers
Designing Embedded Systems using MicroPython
The C/C++ programming languages have long dominated the embedded systems industry, with very few other languages being able to find a foothold. While languages such as Java and Ada have certainly tried, the popularity of Python has not only been on the rise but has been finding its way into Linux based applications for quite … Continue reading Designing Embedded Systems using MicroPython
5 Tips for using Arm TrustZone in Cortex-M Processors
As embedded system developers transition to creating connected, IoT devices, security has become one of the most important issues they face. The ARMv8-M processors do support TrustZone® which provides developers with a new mechanism to help them isolate their secure software from more general user software. Just like with any new tool, there are several … Continue reading 5 Tips for using Arm TrustZone in Cortex-M Processors
5 Resources for learning Python
Python has become an indispensable tool to embedded software developers. Whether Python is being used to provide a GUI to control a system, acquire data or even used to write the embedded software (think MicroPython), chances are that Python has a place in your development process. In this article, we will present several resources that … Continue reading 5 Resources for learning Python
CEC – Designing Embedded Systems using MicroPython
The C/C++ programming languages have long dominated the embedded systems industry, with very few other languages being able to find a foothold. The winds of change are upon us, however, and MicroPython may be the programming language you use to build your next product. Python’s shallow learning curve and the fact that even elementary-school students … Continue reading CEC – Designing Embedded Systems using MicroPython
The Big Tech Cloud Wars Ramifications on the Embedded Industry
Several years ago, Amazon acquired the open source operating system FreeRTOS(TM) and with it, launched a new operating system named Amazon FreeRTOS(TM)? which provides developers working on IoT devices an integrated path to connect with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The idea seems simple, provide developers with a free method to connect to the cloud and … Continue reading The Big Tech Cloud Wars Ramifications on the Embedded Industry