Embedded software developers have grown used to working at the lowest, nitty gritty hardware level within a microcontroller based system. Twiddling and manipulating bits and bytes is what embedded software developers were born to do. The embedded software industry is changing and that change is requiring developers to start working at higher levels of abstraction … Continue reading 7 Tips for Developing Great API’s
Category: Software Techniques
Getting Started using Arm® TrustZone® for Cortex®-M Processors
TrustZone for Cortex-M processors is on the way! There has already been an announcement from Nuvoton that they will be releasing the worlds first Cortex-M23 processor, the Cortex-M2351, that will include support for Arm TrustZone. The problem for many IoT developers though is that they are ready to start learning TrustZone now but don’t have … Continue reading Getting Started using Arm® TrustZone® for Cortex®-M Processors
Improve Debug Efficiency with the ITM
Let’s face it. No matter how sophisticated our debug tools get, there will always be a place for an old fashioned printf statement. Unfortunately, printf tends be efficient and can dramatically affect the systems real-time performance. For developers using an Arm Cortex®-M3 or better, printf can be remapped to the Instrumentation Trace Macrocell (ITM) which … Continue reading Improve Debug Efficiency with the ITM
3 Ways to Perform a Worst-Case Stack Analysis
Figuring out how to size the stack for an embedded application and the tasks within it can be challenging. In many cases, developers will pick a value that they feel should be enough. These estimates are sometimes a little short, most of the time a gross estimation and rarely spot on. While I always encourage … Continue reading 3 Ways to Perform a Worst-Case Stack Analysis
Evaluating and Mastering Real-Time Debugging Techniques
There are many techniques and processes that developers can follow in order to minimize the defects (bugs) that find their way into embedded software. No matter how carefully one develops their software, there is always going to be a few that sneak through and require us to troubleshoot (debug) the software. In this post, we … Continue reading Evaluating and Mastering Real-Time Debugging Techniques
Amazon FreeRTOS: Behind the Scenes
I recently wrote an article for embedded.com entitled “A Peek Inside Amazon FreeRTOS” where I started to analyze the high-level behavior that the Amazon FreeRTOS application exhibits while running on an STM32F475 IoT Discovery Node. In this post, I will continue the analysis by demonstrating how a developer can follow the communication flow and examine … Continue reading Amazon FreeRTOS: Behind the Scenes
Bugs and Errors and Defects, Oh My!
The very terminology that we use when developing embedded software can set our perspective and have potentially devastating effects on our ability to deliver successfully. The most commonly used term to describe an issue with software is that “there is a bug” or that the code is “buggy”. The term bug implies that there is … Continue reading Bugs and Errors and Defects, Oh My!
5 Challenges facing over-the-air updates using MCUs
The ability to update an embedded system using a bootloader is an important skill to master. Despite all the effort placed into developing an embedded system, either bugs are discovered in the field or end users request additional features. In order to update firmware in the field or remotely over-the-air, the embedded system must have … Continue reading 5 Challenges facing over-the-air updates using MCUs
Embedded Basics – Hash Fundamentals
Hashes are a very important topic in computer science and provide a wide range of capabilities and functionality. To an embedded software developer, hashes play an important role in verification and securing an embedded system. In this post, we will examine cryptographic hash fundamentals and provide the foundations that a developer can use to start … Continue reading Embedded Basics – Hash Fundamentals
Tools – Getting a grip on Semi-hosting
Semi-hosting is a debugging capability supported by ARM processors that allows the embedded target to access i/o capabilities on a host PC through the debugging interface. The i/o capabilities are most often used with printf to transmit text data to a virtual terminal within the debugging environment but it can also be used for file … Continue reading Tools – Getting a grip on Semi-hosting