An interesting area of a code base to examine is error handling. I’ve found that many firmware and embedded software projects don’t do an excellent job managing errors and faults. … Continue reading Firmware Error Handling using Do while Loops
Category: Hardware
CEC – How to Select the Right Microcontroller for an Application
This course will examine how to select a microcontroller using a modern process. We will examine traditional selection techniques and how modern techniques examine security, machine learning, and the software … Continue reading CEC – How to Select the Right Microcontroller for an Application
How to Debug a Hard Fault on an Arm Cortex-M
In my opinion, one of the worst, most annoying faults to debug on an Arm Cortex-M microcontroller is a hard fault. If you are lucky, the hard fault appears after … Continue reading How to Debug a Hard Fault on an Arm Cortex-M
Simple Tricks to Minimize “Crossed-Wire” PCB Rework
One of the most common issues I see with schematic and PCB layout is crossed wires. For example, the designer has connected the USART peripherals transmit line to the transmit … Continue reading Simple Tricks to Minimize “Crossed-Wire” PCB Rework
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 … Continue reading 3 Use Cases for Multicore Microcontrollers
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 … Continue reading 5 Elements to Secure Embedded System – Part #2 Root-of-Trust (RoT)
5 Tips for Adding an Audio Codec to an Embedded System
The ability for an embedded system to play audio is becoming a fairly common feature. Audio provides great feedback to a user, but with so much high-fidelity audio available today, … Continue reading 5 Tips for Adding an Audio Codec to an Embedded System
3 Tips for Validating Sensor and Communication Data in Embedded Systems
Software engineers have a bad habit of being very optimistic. This optimism often doesn’t just include their calculation on how long it will take for a specific task to be … Continue reading 3 Tips for Validating Sensor and Communication Data in Embedded Systems
5 Boards that Make Rapid Prototyping Easy
There are many instances in a product development cycle where a developer will want to create a rapid prototype. A developer may want to create an entire system, learn how … Continue reading 5 Boards that Make Rapid Prototyping Easy
A Microchip PIC16F84 LED Sequencer – Part 1
With the start of a new decade, a pandemic where we are on lock-down and the arrival spring, it was a perfect time to go through the office and reorganize. … Continue reading A Microchip PIC16F84 LED Sequencer – Part 1