In “5 Elements to a Secure Embedded System – Part 3 Secure Boot”, we continued our discussion about the five essential elements required to begin securing an embedded system. As you may recall, the five elements that every developer should be looking to implement are: Hardware based isolation A Root-of-Trust (RoT) A secure boot solution … Continue reading 5 Elements to Secure Embedded Systems – Part #4 Secure Bootloaders
Category: Design Cycle
3 Use Cases for Multicore Microcontrollers
Multicore microcontrollers are starting to become popular among embedded systems designers. Designers can leverage multiple cores by breaking their applications up into separate application (execution) domains. Each domain then has a dedicated function to fulfill in the system. While multiple cores have been used in safety-critical applications for some time, there are several additional use … Continue reading 3 Use Cases for Multicore Microcontrollers
Programming the STM32 Option Bytes using SEGGER J-Flash
Nearly every microcontroller contains option bytes, fuses, or some method to control general settings on the processor. These settings often control features such as whether debugging is enabled or disabled, flash can be written or read, and even how the processor will boot. In this post, we will explore how to program the STM32 option … Continue reading Programming the STM32 Option Bytes using SEGGER J-Flash
5 Elements to Secure Embedded Systems – Part #3 Secure Boot
In “5 Elements to a Secure Embedded System – Part 2 Root-of-Trust”, we continued our discussion about the five essential elements required to begin securing an embedded system. As you may recall, the five elements that every developer should be looking to implement are: Hardware-based isolation A Root-of-Trust (RoT) A secure boot solution A secure … Continue reading 5 Elements to Secure Embedded Systems – Part #3 Secure Boot
5 Elements to Secure Embedded System – Part #2 Root-of-Trust (RoT)
In “5 Elements to Secure Embedded Systems – Part #1 Hardware-Based Isolation”, we started our discussion about the five essential elements required to begin securing an embedded system. As you may recall, the five elements that every developer should be looking to implement are: Hardware-based isolation A Root-of-Trust (RoT) A secure boot solution A secure … Continue reading 5 Elements to Secure Embedded System – Part #2 Root-of-Trust (RoT)
There is No Hardware
My favorite line from the Matrix is that “there is no spoon”, and today that is a wise statement for embedded software developers to take to heart. Embedded software developers traditionally are hardware centric, believing that they can’t move forward without the hardware (sometimes this is true). Much like Neo, developers need to accept that … Continue reading There is No Hardware
Tips, Tricks and Best Practices, so What’s the Deal?
The advancements in chip, sensor and wireless technologies over the past decade have resulted in exponential increases in system complexity that create unique challenges for development teams. While systems today are more feature rich, teams struggle to deliver quality solutions that easily scale, can be delivered on-time and within budget. This is where tips, tricks … Continue reading Tips, Tricks and Best Practices, so What’s the Deal?
3 Tips for Delivering Software Projects On-Time Every Time
Delivering embedded systems on-time is a struggle for many developers and teams. From time-to-time, I’ve struggled with delivering on-time as well. I think it’s part of the human condition or at least the software developers’ condition. After some consideration, I’ve realized that there are generally 3 tips that can be followed to improve the chances … Continue reading 3 Tips for Delivering Software Projects On-Time Every Time
A Simple, Scalable RTOS Initialization Design Pattern
I often find that developers initialize task code in seemingly random places throughout their application. This can make it difficult to make changes to the tasks, but more importantly just difficult to understand what all is happening in the application. It also makes it so that the application is not very scalable or easy to … Continue reading A Simple, Scalable RTOS Initialization Design Pattern
3 Strategies for Handling Errors in Embedded Software
It’s very tempting to assume that a system is going to behave as perfectly in the field as it does on the engineering bench. During development, embedded software is written under the best of conditions. The developer knows, or at least has their own concept of, how the system is supposed to work. Things usually … Continue reading 3 Strategies for Handling Errors in Embedded Software