Despite the hopes and dreams of many embedded engineers, reliable code doesn’t happen by accident. It is a painstaking process that requires developers to maintain and manage every bit and byte of the system. There is usually a sigh of relief when an application is validated “successfully” but just because the software is running correctly … Continue reading 7 Tips for Creating a Reliable Embedded System
Category: Design Cycle
5 Techniques for Accelerating Engineering Development
The coveted, and often overused marketing phrases in product development as a whole revolves around decreasing costs, faster time to market while improving product quality. We have all heard these statements uttered by probably 90% of all engineering vendors ranging from parts and software suppliers through system integrators and even consultants. As humans, we want … Continue reading 5 Techniques for Accelerating Engineering Development
Defining the Meaning of Software Quality
It’s not uncommon for a software library, vendor or team to claim that they develop quality software. The problem with this proclamation is that the definition for quality can be interpreted quite differently between different developers and teams. One team may consider any code base that meets MISRA-C to be a quality code base while … Continue reading Defining the Meaning of Software Quality
Protect Your Tools when the Hardware Bites Back
I recently had an exciting experience where I was working with a client who was having I2C issues with a new board they had developed. To speed up the debugging process, I connected my I2C/SPI bus tool to their development board and custom-built hardware. Being able to view the I2C traffic would allow a quick … Continue reading Protect Your Tools when the Hardware Bites Back
The Hardware Abstraction Layer Design Process
Using a HAL is a great way to develop software that can be easily reused and ported from one application and platform to the next. Why would a developer want to do such a thing? For starters, reinventing the wheel over and over again gets pretty boring. I believe most developers want to be working … Continue reading The Hardware Abstraction Layer Design Process
Defining the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
Consistently developing a quality embedded system within budgetary and timing constraints is a challenging endeavor for many teams. The reasons can be quite varied but from my conversations with clients and teams all around the world from start-ups to huge semiconductor companies, an immature Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is one of the leading culprits. … Continue reading Defining the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
The 3 Transformative Technologies in Food Services Automation
From the Blackberry’s release in 1998, to the iPhone in 2007, to the vast array of connected and powerful home and personal devices we have today, the past two decades have seen an incredible leap in our ability to communicate, control, and interact with our world as consumers. Indeed, it is these transformative technologies of … Continue reading The 3 Transformative Technologies in Food Services Automation
10 Tricks for Documenting Embedded Software
There are few things more challenging in software development than acquiring a code base with little to no documentation and being required to maintain it. Documentation doesn’t just tell an engineer what a particular function or variable does but it also demonstrates and conveys why the software was implemented in a particular fashion. There are … Continue reading 10 Tricks for Documenting Embedded Software
The 5 Biggest Challenges Facing Embedded Software Developers in IoT
Developing embedded software is not as “simple” as it used to be. Creating a stand-alone device was and still often still is challenging for many development teams. In the IoT age where we are starting to connect absolutely everything, including toothbrushes, system complexity is skyrocketing. The traditional, disconnected developer is finding that there are several … Continue reading The 5 Biggest Challenges Facing Embedded Software Developers in IoT
5 Benefits to replacing analog components with DSP software
The IoT is unleashing an unimaginable number of connected devices, many of which are sensor systems that are designed to sense and interact with the world around them. The world around us is analog and analog sensors are often used to provide the sensing mechanism to the microcontroller. Analog circuits are often big, bulky and … Continue reading 5 Benefits to replacing analog components with DSP software