For the umpteenth time in my career, I am debugging a prototype board that has exactly zero test points. I didn’t design this board, but have inherited it from a frantic colleague who is behind schedule and is having trouble communicating with an onboard SPI device. The first step in this troubleshooting endeavor is to … Continue reading Where oh Where are My Test Points!
Category: Tips and Tricks
7 Tips for Developing Great API’s
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
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
7 Tips for Securing an Embedded System
Security, just like quality and many other embedded system attributes must be considered at the start of the development cycle. Developers can’t build their system and then add security at the end. With more and more systems starting to connect to the internet, there are more than a dozen best practices that developers should follow … Continue reading 7 Tips for Securing an Embedded System
7 Tips for Optimizing Embedded Software
In “5 Embedded System Characteristics Every Engineer Should Monitor”, I discussed key embedded system characteristics that in many cases require optimization. These characteristics include system timing, code size, RAM usage and energy consumption. Optimizing each characteristic typically requires different methods and techniques but there are several general tips developers can follow to optimize their embedded … Continue reading 7 Tips for Optimizing Embedded Software
Tools – 10 Engineering Notebook Best Practices
In the article, “Transitioning to a Modern Day Engineering Notebook“, I discussed the basic features and capabilities a modern electronic notebook would need to meet the requirements of the average engineer. In order to get the most out of an engineering notebook, here are ten tips engineers should consider. Tip #1 – Keep a notebook … Continue reading Tools – 10 Engineering Notebook Best Practices
Transitioning to a Modern Day Engineering Notebook
Engineers and scientists have always relied upon notebooks to document their ideas, inventions, progress and even their missteps. Some of the most notable engineers and scientists who used notebooks include Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci. In fact, mankind would know very little of da Vinci’s discoveries had he not written them down … Continue reading Transitioning to a Modern Day Engineering Notebook
Tips and Tricks – 10 Steps for Selecting a Microcontroller (2017)
The way developers select a microcontroller for their embedded systems is dramatically changing. Traditionally developers have focused on the hardware first and thought about the software second. Selecting a microcontroller in this manner, will result in failure today. There are several new steps that developers need to follow if they are going to be successful … Continue reading Tips and Tricks – 10 Steps for Selecting a Microcontroller (2017)
Tips and Tricks – 5 Tips for Developing Real-time C++ Applications
Object-oriented programming has become a very popular and critical programming methodology for developing applications. While traditional embedded software development has mostly been developed using the procedural language C, C++ and other object oriented languages are slowly started to gain traction in real-time systems. In order to ensure that a C++ based applications doesn’t bloat code … Continue reading Tips and Tricks – 5 Tips for Developing Real-time C++ Applications
Tips and Tricks – Jumping from the Bootloader to the Application Code Cleanly
Bootloaders are included in nearly every embedded system and provide a great way to update application code in the field without having to access a programming port. As important as bootloaders are, developers often get tripped up trying to jump from the bootloader into their application code. The jump needs to be clean but there … Continue reading Tips and Tricks – Jumping from the Bootloader to the Application Code Cleanly