Behind Amazon FreeRTOS, Securing Embedded Systems, Embedded Online and more!

May 2018

Dear *|FNAME|*,

This month, I have pulled together several articles that I think will benefit developers and provide some new insights into Amazon FreeRTOS. This months articles include:

Just a reminder that the free Embedded Online conference will be taking place on May 22nd. You can learn more in the events section or by clicking the link below:

Embedded Online sessions

I hope that you will join me for a full day of interesting talks. The recordings will be made available to registrants.

Happy Coding,

Jacob Beningo

[email protected]

Jacob’s Blog

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 …

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 …

Unboxing the arm ULINKplus Programmer

I’m a big believer that having the right tools for the job not only can speed up the job, but can also improve the quality of the end product. That is why every month I look at a different tool that can aid developers. This month, I’ve decided to take a look at my newly …

CEC – Building Your Own Internet Connected PLC

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC’s) are the foundation for manufacturing and the industrial IoT. Developers are probably used to purchasing off-the-shelf PLC controllers, but it is possible to build a simple low-cost PLC controller using microcontroller components. In this course, we will explore PLC fundamentals and how we can create our own internet connected PLC controller …

Upcoming Events

I am delighted to announce that ST Microelectronics is one our sponsors for this free online event!

Embedded Online Conference

Session 1 – Jump Starting Code Development to Minimize Software Defects

Debugging an embedded system is one of the most time consuming and expensive activities that embedded software developers engage in. Survey results show that the average team spends 40% of a development cycle debugging their software! Developers can easily prevent, detect and eliminate defects to dramatically decrease the time spent troubleshooting which can accelerate their development, decrease costs and improve product reliability. In this session, we are going to examine several techniques that can be used to quickly detect defects. We will develop a robust process that attendees can follow and implement to decrease the time they spend debugging and spend more time innovating.

This session will utilize hands-on demonstrations using ST Microelectronics TrueStudio and Percepio Tracealyzer 4 with source code being readily available for attendees.

Key Take-A-Ways:

How to effectively decrease the time spent troubleshooting software
The differences between bugs, defects and errors
8 Troubleshooting techniques for embedded systems
A code start-up process to prevent defects
Leveraging trace technology to detect defects
Tools necessary to troubleshoot a system
Troubleshooting best practices

European Session: Register Here

North American Session: Register Here

Speaker Information:

Jacob Beningo is an independent consultant and lecturer who specializes in the design of embedded software for resource constrained and low energy mobile devices. He has successfully completed projects across a number of industries including automotive, defense, medical and space. He enjoys developing and teaching real-time and reusable software development techniques using the latest methods and tools. He blogs for DesignNews.com about embedded system design techniques and challenges. Jacob holds Bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering, Physics and Mathematics from Central Michigan University and a Master’s degree in Space Systems Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Session 2 – Debugging and profiling your STM32 device using Atollic TrueSTUDIO for STM32

As any builder, handyman, or software developer knows, the right tools make all the difference in meeting deadlines, working efficiently and delivering a quality product. In embedded development the quality of your tools often determines the length and difficulty of the project schedule, particularly when it comes to debugging, test, and software optimization. In this webinar we will show a number of tools in Atollic TrueSTUDIO for STM32 that can be used to debug and profile your code.

Key Take-A-Ways:

Build analysis, visualize how code and data is placed in the build output memory layout
Stack analysis, visualize the stack usage of your functions and entire application
Fault analysis, a simple way of examining CPU fault conditions
Printf() re-direciton to ITM ports, software tracing with minimal overhead
Statistical profiling, understand which portions of code consume most CPU time
Exception/Interrupt tracing, examine exception and interrupt behavior
Data tracing, non-intrusive monitoritoring of memory accesses

European Session: Register Here
North American Session: Register Here

Speaker Information:

Mattias Norlander was part of the company Atollic that was acquired by STMicroelectronics end of 2017. In ST Mattias is part of the IDE development team and acts as an interface between dev-team and the user base. He is a tech enthusiast and a Maker who enjoys helping other developers with tools related challenges and troubleshooting.

Session 3 – Machine learning on deeply embedded and resource constrained end nodes for the IoT

“Intelligence is spreading! I’m not saying that the human population is getting cleverer (though it almost certainly is) but that intelligence is spreading like wildfire in the world of computing and electronics. And we’re not just talking about robots and industrial machinery but devices which are much closer to home – phones, light bulbs, thermostats, even fridges are having more and more intelligence embedded into them. Increasingly, they can interact with each other and with us humans directly. Enabling this means a change in the way we design the electronics at the heart of these devices, making it possible to accomplish tasks like voice recognition efficiently and without the need to connect to the cloud. This talk will look at some of the ways in which the next generation of microprocessors will make this possible.”

European Session: Register Here
North American Session: Register Here

Christopher Shore
Director of Embedded Solutions

Chris has worked at ARM for over 18 years, currently as Director of Embedded Solutions. For much of the previous 16 years, he was responsible for ARM’s customer training activity – delivering over 200 training courses every year to ARM’s customers and end users all over the world. He also managed ARM’s Active Assist onsite services and the ARM Approved partner program. Chris is a regular speaker at conferences and industry events and has addressed audiences on ARM technology on every continent except Antarctica – opportunities there are limited but it is surely only a matter of time! Chris has lived and worked in Cambridge for over 30 years. He holds an MA in Computer Science from Cambridge University, is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (MIET).

Session 4 – A Platform Approach to Securing Your IoT Devices

Security is the new battleground for today’s connected devices. The challenges are especially difficult for portable/wearable, battery-operated, home/personal use, and wirelessly connected devices due to the need for low power consumption, tighter cost management, and vulnerability to wireless attacks. With seemingly more hackers than available security experts, a platform approach is essential to optimizing your time-to-market and effectiveness of the solution: When deploying a security solution for your IoT devices, one needs to consider:

How data is secured on the device and / or in the cloud, as well as who has access to that data
How new users are given identityHow to ensure data integrity and availability
Who has the authority to send commands to a device and secure those commands against modification, replay, sequence changes and disclosure
How to ensure firmware has not been modified
If and how to ensure that your software intellectual property cannot be stolen

All TimeZones: Register Here

Speaker Information:

Mark Schaeffer

Mark Schaeffer is the Software-marketing Manager for Cybersecurity at Renesas Electronics Inc. With more than 20 years of experience in the security space, Mark has worked with applications for financial transactions, identity, anti-counterfeiting of equipment and peripherals, medical devices, machine-to-machine security/IoT, web security, border security, and secure computing. He has led global teams of engineers in both enterprise and startups and is well versed at multiple levels in security. Mark has spoken at numerous industry events, produced several security conferences, and written many security-related papers and documents. He is also active in standards, public policy, and lobbying within the Cybersecurity practice. Mark holds a BS degree in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Session 5: The Many Dangers of HMI

Almost every modern product, from food service machines to production line equipment to smart building controls is adopting rich graphic/touch LCD user interfaces. Engineers are bombarded with marketing hype on how some chip or library or tool can make this transition easy and quick. Unfortunately, most of these so-called “solutions” are merely small building blocks in a much larger and disruptive platform technology and engineering challenge. Don’t embark on your HMI voyage without attending this session! We’ve seen innumerable epic HMI failures – let us help you avoid some of the common ones as we walk you through elements to consider and evaluate before you set sail.

Key Take-A-Ways

Define the building blocks of the modern HMI platform
Business and marketing inputs that can torpedo your plan
How “free” can be disastrously expensive
A list of essential HMI decisions you should make before you start

All TimeZones: Register Here

Session 6: Do an “Embedded Steve Austin” without the 6 Million Dollars – Re-engineering your embedded platform for the next decade

Embedded architectures have lifespans. Inevitably you have to take your design apart and redo it as the new features and capabilities needed on your company’s roadmap aren’t possible with the prior design. Today’s disruptive – but desirable – product features include unprecedented connectivity options (BT5, WiFi, Ethernet, Zigbee, 4G, USB, …), HMI, and IoT with nearly infinite control and data visibility. And security concerns loom around every corner. Like Steve Austin, your platform has to be faster… better… stronger. But, unlike Steve, you don’t have 6 million dollars to spare: in your world, that translates to mountains of new software and the complexities of 10,000-page MCU data sheets that can grind your “we can rebuild it” project to a halt. This session explores new embedded platform solutions that can revolutionize how you architect, design, develop, deploy, scale, and evolve your embedded products on a beat rate and total cost of software/hardware never before possible. You can rebuild it.

Key Take-A-Ways

Define the building blocks of the modern embedded platform
Understanding and choosing the right level of supplier integration to start from
Navigating marketing requirements as they evolve
How “free” solutions can be the most expensive

All TimeZones: Register Here

Speaker Information:

Terry West
CEO Serious Integrated

Terry West has over 25 years experience building new embedded technology businesses at Intel, Microchip, and RIM. As the first employee of RIM in 1988, Mr. West fueled the early growth of RIM while developing the technologies and customer relationships leading to the RIM BlackBerry. At Intel, he managed an XScale® (ARM) processor internal startup from first shipment to $85M run-rate in less than 3 years, led a $300M acquisition for the company, and developed and marketed numerous software+silicon+tools platform technologies for the embedded market. Recently at Microchip, Mr. West launched their flagship line of 32-bit microcontrollers and directed a comprehensive re-engineering of their global customer-facing marketing presence.

Embedded System Workshops

Last Call for Early Bird Registration!

Advanced Real-time Operating System (RTOS) Techniques

Understanding basic RTOS principles is easy but applying those techniques and reaching an advanced understanding of the concepts is difficult. This workshop propels developers into advanced RTOS application design techniques that are rarely covered in traditional RTOS courses but are critical to the practicing engineer. In this course we will examine practical examples and techniques that will accelerate development activities and improve the robustness of RTOS based designs. We will be using Percepio’s Tracealyzer to not only visualize our applications but also spot common RTOS issues such as priority inversions and dead-lock. The course includes six sessions:

Session 1 – Synchronization Techniques
Session 2 – RTOS Pitfalls and Issues
Session 3 – Debugging RTOS Applications
Session 4 – RTOS Application Design Patterns
Session 5 – Optimizing RTOS Applications
Session 6 – Developing Secure RTOS Applications
Session 7 – RTOS Best Practices

Attendees receive the live lecture, lecture recordings, lab materials, slides and supplemental materials. Attendees have unlimited access to the materials in addition to access to any future updates and are always welcome to attend the live courses indefinitely.

Live Sessions Start in May 17th!

Embedded Software Design Books

Reusable Firmware Development – A Practical Approach to API’s, HAL’s and Drivers
AVAILABLE NOW!

Gain the knowledge and skills necessary to improve your embedded software and benefit from author Jacob Beningo’s more than 15 years developing reusable and portable software for resource-constrained microcontroller-based systems. You will explore APIs, HALs, and driver development among other topics to acquire a solid foundation for improving your own software. Reusable Firmware Development: A Practical Approach to APIs, HALs and Drivers not only explains critical concepts, but also provides a plethora of examples, exercises, and case studies on how to use and implement the concepts.

Click here to learn more …

Interested in learning more? Visit our website to find out more about Beningo Embedded, or check out our blog to see our entire article archive – read past articles, search by category, and much more!