An embedded tip that I often advocate is that developers should avoid using assembly language. The reason for avoiding assembly language is that it is specific to the processor architecture being used, it is difficult to read, understand and maintain. Today, we are going to look at the few areas where I believe it is … Continue reading 4 Uses for Assembly Language
Category: Tips and Tricks
5 Tips for Expanding your Embedded Skills
As embedded systems engineers, we work in a field that is constantly changing. Not only does change come quickly, the amount of work and the skills we need in order to successfully do our jobs is constantly expanding. A firmware engineer used to need to know the microcontroller hardware and assembly language. Today, they need … Continue reading 5 Tips for Expanding your Embedded Skills
5 Tips for Designing a Smart Watchdog
Recovering from a system failure or a software glitch can be no easy task. The longer the fault occurs the harder it can be to identify and recover. The use of an external watchdog is an important and critical tool in the embedded systems engineer toolbox. There are five tips that should be taken into … Continue reading 5 Tips for Designing a Smart Watchdog
7 Steps to Create a Reusable Debounce Algorithm
A quick google search reveals that there are over 212,000 websites that examine how to debounce a button. After examining a number of them it is obvious that these implementations are not meant for reuse. The implementations and strategies often lack scalability, the ability to debounce multiple buttons easily and portability. They are tightly coupled … Continue reading 7 Steps to Create a Reusable Debounce Algorithm
5 Tips for Improving Embedded Development (in 2020)
The start of a new year, especially one that is the start of a new decade, provides a great excuse to carefully evaluate and review how you develop embedded systems and put in place a plan to improve it. The techniques and processes that are used to effectively develop products are constantly changing and improving, … Continue reading 5 Tips for Improving Embedded Development (in 2020)
5 Tips for using Open Source Software Successfully
In today’s product development environment, developers are looking to open source software to help them solve their design challenges more than ever before. Open source software has the potential to dramatically accelerate development and save costs, but as I often see in industry and with my clients, it can also become a thorn in a … Continue reading 5 Tips for using Open Source Software Successfully
2 Techniques to Version Embedded Hardware
When it comes to embedded systems version control, I often immediately jump to thinking about the software. Software changes often and carefully managing those changes are crucial, but so is versioning the hardware. A small hardware change could obsolesce every version of software up to that hardware change. In todays’ post, we are going to … Continue reading 2 Techniques to Version Embedded Hardware
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 Lessons to Learn from the Boeing 737 MAX Fiasco
On Sept 17, 1908, Orville Wright and Lt Thomas Selfridge took off in a Wright Flyer from Fort Meyer Virginia. Shortly after take-off, the Wright Flyer suddenly pitched down, driving the aircraft into the ground, injuring Wright and killing Selfridge. The crash occurred when one of the wooden propellers split and pulled on the bracing … Continue reading 5 Lessons to Learn from the Boeing 737 MAX Fiasco
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