Webinar Video Links, Knowing your debugger, printf performance and more!

June 2018

Dear *|FNAME|*,

You may have realized that my twice a month newsletter on embedded software design techniques, that typically goes out on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, is late! There are two reasons:

1) It took a little longer than planned to pull together the video links and presentations from last months Embedded Online conference and make them available to you, which you can find below:

Embedded Online Recording Links and Materials

2) As a one-man band, it’s taken me a little bit longer to understand and pull together the required policies to meet GDPR (which has pulled me away from creating amazing and useful content for you). As always, my goal is to help developers improve the way that they design their embedded systems and teach the latest techniques available. I don’t sell, trade or do anything else shady with the data I have and treat it the same way I want my own data treated. If you are interested in reading yet another GDPR privacy policy, you can find the latest Beningo Embedded Group policy below (Be warned, it’s all legalise and has none of my own charm and humor):

At this time, if you reside in the European Union, you are required to reconfirm your subscription to my newsletter in order to comply with GDPR. You will remain subscribed through July and if you have not reconfirmed by then, you will be removed from the newsletter. Since I don’t want you to miss out on all the knowledge and experience that I share, you can reconfirm using the following link:

ReConfirm Newsletter Subscription

This month, I have pulled together several articles that I think will benefit developers and provide some new insights into debugging techniques! I thought I would continue with the trend the online conference and cover a few more areas that developers can improve their technique. This months articles include:

Happy Coding,

Jacob Beningo

[email protected]

Jacob’s Blog

How well do you know your debugger?

The debugger is arguably one of the most important tools available to embedded software engineers. The debugger is capable of not only loading firmware on a microcontroller but can peer into the depths of memory and registers, revealing its inner workings. Despite the debuggers importance, many developers overlook some of the most useful features of …

5 Debugging Techniques for the ARM Cortex-M MCU

Debugging embedded software is my least favorite activity but unfortunately a necessary evil. Thankfully recent advances in technology and tool chain innovation has resulted in a plethora of techniques to drastically speed up the debugging process. Let’s examine a few techniques starting from our traditional debugging by break-point through the more advanced instrument trace techniques. …

Getting the most performance from printf

The oldest, tried and true debugging technique is to sprinkle printf statements throughout embedded software in the hope that an insight to the system behavior will be gleaned. Using printf is not always advisable and can unforeseen real-time implications for the system. Let’s examine the fundamental issues with printf and then a few techniques that …

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 …

Embedded System Workshops

Minimizing Defects (Bugs) in Real-Time Embedded Systems

One of the greatest challenges facing development teams today is preventing and managing their software bugs. On average, development teams spent at least 40% of their time debugging! For an average development project (1 year), that’s 4.8 months! There are many techniques that developers can follow to dramatically decrease their debug efforts which can result in decreased development costs, faster times to market, a less stressful work environment and more time to focus on product differentiation and features. In this course, attendees will learn the strategies necessary to minimize, prevent and manage software defects while also learning how to quickly and efficiently troubleshoot their systems when bugs do squeak through. Each attendee will assess their own defect management capabilities and will develop an action plan to follow that will improve their skills.

Attendees will also get a hands-on approach as we examine microcontroller hardware and interfaces such as SWD, ITM and the ETM. We will examine traditional debugging techniques such as printf and assertions in addition to examining cutting edge real-time techniques such as OS aware debugging, tracing and deep insight analysis.

The techniques used in this course can be applied to nearly any embedded system and hardware setup.

The course consists of the following sessions:

Session 1 – Managing Defects
Session 2 – Modern Debugging Techniques and Interfaces
Session 3 – Understanding Basic Debugging Techniques
Session 4 – Employing the ITM
Session 5 – The Serial Wire Viewer
Session 6 – Data Tracing, Profiling and Deep Insight Analysis
Session 7 – Using Trace to Understand your Application

The course is taught in a convenient, hands-on style that provides developers with ample time to not just absorb the material but begin to apply it.

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 on September 20th!

Save 25% with our early bird special until August 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!