Call for Speakers: Inaugural Embedded Systems Summit
A new, practical in-person event for embedded engineers lands in Silicon Valley this October. Stephane Boucher and Jacob are inviting hands-on, engineer-to-engineer talks for the inaugural Embedded Systems Summit, October 14-16, 2025, with emphasis on RTOS, AI, bare-metal, IoT, edge computing, security, tooling, and firmware architecture. Submit session proposals focused on lessons learned, debugging war stories, and reproducible design patterns by August 8, 2025.
The Inaugural Embedded Systems Summit is Coming to Silicon Valley!
Stephane Boucher and Jacob Beningo are launching the first Embedded Systems Summit, an in-person, engineer-run conference in Silicon Valley from October 14 to 16, 2025. Expect practical, hands-on sessions and familiar speakers from the Embedded Online Conference. Passes are limited, so read on to learn why this event could be a high-impact investment in your embedded engineering career.
Beware of Analog Switch Leakage Current
Leakage currents in analog switches can quietly wreck precision reference circuits at elevated temperature. Jason M. Sachs walks through three switch-topology implementations for a switchable 1.25 V reference and shows which topology gives the smallest worst-case output error using real part specs. He explains why op amp input bias is usually negligible and gives practical fixes: lower resistances, better switches, or limiting temperature range.
Better Hardware Design Decisions, Faster: A Lean Team’s Guide to MDO
As design complexity grows, siloed decision-making often leads to late-stage surprises, costly rework, and missed opportunities for optimization. Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) offers a structured approach to solving this by enabling teams to evaluate trade-offs and impacts across the full system before implementation begins. Traditionally used in large, high-budget industries like aerospace, MDO is now within reach for lean teams, thanks to more accessible modeling tools and an urgent need for tighter collaboration. This article outlines how small hardware teams can adopt MDO in a practical way, starting simple, integrating key models early, and building toward a culture of systems thinking. The result is better design decisions, faster development, and more robust, manufacturable products with fewer surprises along the way.
2025 Embedded Online Conference: Your Guide to This Year's Schedule
Stephane Boucher lays out a clear day-by-day guide to the 2025 Embedded Online Conference, highlighting keynotes, live workshops, and new features. The post explains the new track-based group Q&A format moderated by Jacob Beningo, early release of sponsored talks on May 9, and an attendee-only Discord for networking and follow-ups. Use this guide to plan which sessions and panels to prioritize.
How to Analyze a Three-Op-Amp Instrumentation Amplifier
The three-op-amp instrumentation amplifier gives you high input impedance, improved net bandwidth, and much lower sensitivity to resistor mismatch than a single-op-amp differential stage. Jason M. Sachs walks through the algebra, numeric examples, and historical notes to show how the preamp isolates common-mode, why splitting gain boosts bandwidth, how overall gain can be set with one resistor, and what practical limits to watch.
How to Achieve Deterministic Behavior in Real-Time Embedded Systems
Ensuring deterministic behavior in real-time embedded systems is paramount for their reliability and performance. The ability to predict precisely how a system will respond to various inputs at any given time is crucial in critical applications such as medical devices, aerospace systems, and automotive safety mechanisms. Achieving deterministic behavior involves meticulous design, stringent testing, and adherence to strict timing constraints.
How to Design Reliable Reset Circuits for Embedded Microcontrollers
In the world of embedded systems, the reset circuit is a critical component that ensures the microcontroller starts up correctly and recovers gracefully from unexpected events like power fluctuations or software crashes. A poorly designed reset circuit can lead to erratic behavior, system lockups, or even permanent damage to the microcontroller. For embedded engineers, designing a reliable reset circuit is essential for ensuring the stability and robustness of the system.
Supply Chain Games: A Warning on Tariffs
Jason Sachs warns that the 2025 tariff surge could amplify an existing semiconductor inventory glut and destabilize automotive and industrial supply chains. He lays out why steep, rapid tariff changes cannot be absorbed by years-long fab lead times, sticky proprietary ICs, or quick part substitutions. Read this to understand practical risks, likely timing, and what engineers and buyers should watch over the next two to three years.
Hidden Gems from the Embedded Online Conference Archives - Part 3
Jack Ganssle shows us what we can learn by studying previous failures - and why this is essential for anyone working in embedded systems.
VHDL tutorial - part 2 - Testbench
In this follow-up Gene Breniman builds a VHDL testbench in Xilinx ISE, showing how to generate a continuous master clock, apply a power-on reset, and sequence register strobes to change clock divisors. He walks through timing waits and observation delays needed to verify ADC clock rates. The article also shows how simulation exposed a copy-paste bug in the original design.
How to Read a Power MOSFET Datasheet
Jason Sachs takes a soapbox to stop a recurring mistake: misreading power MOSFET datasheets. This practical guide separates marketing blurbs and typical graphs from the specifications you can actually rely on, and explains how to use RDS(on), VGS, gate charge, SOA and thermal data in real designs. Read this before you pick a MOSFET or size a gate driver.
7 Essential Steps for Reducing Power Consumption in Embedded Devices
Reducing the amount of power your embedded device is consuming is not trivial. With so many devices moving to battery operations today, maximizing battery life can be the difference between a happy, raving customer and an unhappy one that ruins your company's reputation. This post explores seven steps for optimizing your embedded systems' power consumption. You'll gain insights into the steps and techniques necessary along with receiving a few resources to help you on your journey.
Modern C++ in Embedded Development: (Don't Fear) The ++
While C is still the language of choice for embedded development, the adoption of C++ has grown steadily. Yet, reservations about dynamic memory allocation and fears of unnecessary code bloat have kept many in the C camp. This discourse aims to explore the intricacies of employing C++ in embedded systems, negotiating the issues of dynamic memory allocation, and exploiting the benefits of C++ offerings like std::array and constexpr. Moreover, it ventures into the details of the zero-overhead principle and the nuanced distinctions between C and C++. The takeaway? Armed with the right knowledge and a careful approach, C++ can indeed serve as a powerful, safer, and more efficient tool for embedded development.
How to Achieve Deterministic Behavior in Real-Time Embedded Systems
Ensuring deterministic behavior in real-time embedded systems is paramount for their reliability and performance. The ability to predict precisely how a system will respond to various inputs at any given time is crucial in critical applications such as medical devices, aerospace systems, and automotive safety mechanisms. Achieving deterministic behavior involves meticulous design, stringent testing, and adherence to strict timing constraints.
Digital PLL's -- Part 1
A hands-on introduction to time-domain digital phase-locked loops, Neil Robertson builds a simple DPLL model in MATLAB and walks through the NCO, phase detector, and PI loop filter implementations. The post uses phase-in-cycles arithmetic to show how the phase accumulator, detector wrapping, and loop filter interact, and it contrasts linear steady-state behavior with the nonlinear acquisition seen when initial frequency error is large. Part 2 will cover frequency-domain tuning of the loop gains.
Elliptic Curve Cryptography - Basic Math
An introduction to the math of elliptic curves for cryptography. Covers the basic equations of points on an elliptic curve and the concept of point addition as well as multiplication.
Ten Little Algorithms, Part 2: The Single-Pole Low-Pass Filter
Jason Sachs shows how a single-pole IIR low-pass filter, implementable in one line y += alpha * (x - y), tames noise in embedded signals without floating point. The post explains how to compute alpha from tau and delta-t, practical tradeoffs like phase lag and oversampling, and fixed-point pitfalls including how many extra state bits you need to avoid quantization. Short, practical, and code-ready.
Write Better Code with Block Diagrams and Flowcharts
Reading and writing code without architectural diagrams is like trying to follow complex instructions without any explanatory pictures: nigh impossible! By taking the time to draw out the block diagrams and flowcharts for your code, you can help identify problems before they arise and make your code easier to design, write, test, and debug. In this article, I'll briefly justify the importance of architectural drawings such as block diagrams and flowcharts and then teach you what they are and how to draw them. Using two simple examples, you'll see first-hand how these drawings can significantly amplify your understanding of a piece of code. Additionally, I'll give you a few tips for how to implement each drawing once you've completed it and I'll share with you a few neat tools to help you complete your next set of drawings.
Finite State Machines (FSM) in Embedded Systems (Part 2) - Simple C++ State Machine Engine
When implementing state machines in your project it is an advantage to rely on a tried and tested state machine engine. This component is reused for every kind of application and helps the developer focus on the domain part of the software. In this article, the design process that turns a custom C++ code into a finite-state machine engine is fully described with motivations and tradeoffs for each iteration.
VHDL tutorial - A practical example - part 2 - VHDL coding
Gene Breniman walks through the VHDL coding for a CPLD-based data acquisition engine, turning the hardware spec into a working state machine and signal generators. The article explains SPI and I2S timing choices, an internal SPI peripheral latch, and counter-based timing (seqCount and CycleCnt) used to create LRCK, BCK, SPI SCK and nvSRAM write control. It’s a practical, implementation-focused guide for embedded designers.
Introduction to Microcontrollers - Hello World
Mike Silva walks through the classic embedded hello world by blinking an LED on both an AVR and an STM32. The tutorial covers GPIO configuration, bit manipulation, simple software delay loops, and common pitfalls such as compiler optimizations that can remove empty delays unless you use volatile. Practical wiring tips and debugging advice with a scope make this an ideal first lab for embedded engineers.
Cracking the (embedded) Coding Interview
Landing your first embedded job is thrilling, but surviving months of interviews is brutal. This post condenses one engineer’s recent experience into a pragmatic playbook, covering behavioral prep, targeted coding practice, and the embedded theory you actually get asked about. Read it for a focused roadmap: what to study, which platforms to use, and how to present yourself so interviewers root for you.
VHDL tutorial - Creating a hierarchical design
Complex VHDL files quickly become hard to read and maintain. This tutorial demonstrates how to break a design into reusable entities by building a divide-by-10 component, explaining ports, sensitivity lists, and the inout usage for a toggled output. It then shows how to instantiate and chain three instances into a ÷1000 divider, with synthesis notes from compiling to an XC2C128 device.
Already 3000+ Attendees Registered for the Upcoming Embedded Online Conference
More than 3,000 engineers have already signed up for the Embedded Online Conference, and free registration closes at the end of February. Stephane Boucher highlights four practical tracks—DSP and machine learning, FPGA, embedded systems programming, and embedded systems security—and notes that every talk will be available to stream on demand from May 20. If you prefer no-travel learning or want flexible access to world-class talks, register now.
Using the C language to program the am335x PRU
Assembly-language PRU development is tedious and error prone, so Fabien Le Mentec shows how to use TI's PRU C toolchain to simplify the workflow. He walks through installing the CGT package, integrating the compiler with a modified prussdrv loader to honor the _c_int00 start symbol, and provides a BeagleBone Black example with build scripts and sources on GitHub. The post also covers inline assembly constraints and code-size tradeoffs.
C++ on microcontrollers 1 - introduction, and an output pin class
Wouter van Ooijen shows how small C++ abstractions make GPIO code portable and reusable. Starting from a simple output_pin interface he implements concrete pins for an LPC2148 GPIO and a 74HC595 shift register, then composes behaviors with wrappers like tee and invert. The post demonstrates virtual methods, references, and constructor initialization lists to build drivers you can reuse across boards.
Help, My Serial Data Has Been Framed: How To Handle Packets When All You Have Are Streams
Framing byte streams is easier to get wrong than you think, and a bad scheme can leave your embedded device acting on the wrong packet. Jason Sachs walks through common plaintext and binary framing approaches, explains why CRCs alone can still permit false resynchronization, and demonstrates COBS as a simple, low-overhead byte-stuffing method that prevents delimiter collisions and guarantees resynchronization.
10 Software Tools You Should Know
Embedded work gets a lot easier when you have the right software stack, and Jason Sachs lays out the tools he leans on every day. From revision control and file comparison to build systems, scripting, analysis, documentation, QA, and command-line utilities, he focuses on practical picks that save time and reduce mistakes. The list is opinionated, but it is full of the kind of workflow advice that helps engineers stay productive.
Digital PLL's -- Part 1
A hands-on introduction to time-domain digital phase-locked loops, Neil Robertson builds a simple DPLL model in MATLAB and walks through the NCO, phase detector, and PI loop filter implementations. The post uses phase-in-cycles arithmetic to show how the phase accumulator, detector wrapping, and loop filter interact, and it contrasts linear steady-state behavior with the nonlinear acquisition seen when initial frequency error is large. Part 2 will cover frequency-domain tuning of the loop gains.
Sensors Expo - Trip Report & My Best Video Yet!
Stephane Boucher turns a first-time Sensors Expo visit into a fun travelogue and a polished conference highlights video. He mixes candid trip anecdotes from Moncton to San Jose, electric-scooter discoveries, Santa Cruz detours, Airbnb tips, and on-the-floor expo footage. The post culminates in what he calls his best highlights reel yet, plus a follow-up video focused on embedded and IoT.
Who else is going to Sensors Expo in San Jose? Looking for roommate(s)!
Stephane Boucher is heading to Sensors Expo in San Jose for the first time, and he is bringing cameras to capture demos and build a highlights video. He is also looking for roommates for a roomy Airbnb near the convention center, plus local tips for making the most of a free day in the Bay Area. If you are attending, there is also a registration discount code and a VIP pass giveaway in the mix.
Crowdfunding Articles?
Technical writers in the embedded world often have the expertise, but not always the time or incentive to turn it into a post. Stephane Boucher explores a crowdfunding model for technical articles, where readers would pledge small amounts to back promising abstracts before the writing begins. It is an interesting attempt to create more high quality EE content by paying authors upfront.
Embedded World 2018 - More Videos!
Two cinematic videos from Embedded World 2018 turn the show floor into slow-motion, stabilized footage using a Zhiyun Crane gimbal and a Sony a6300. One is a SEGGER booth highlights piece featuring Rolf Segger and Axel Wolf, the other is a roaming montage with appearances from Jacob Beningo, Micheal Barr, and Alan Hawse. Stephane asks viewers to enable audio and share feedback.
Embedded World 2018 - The Interviews
Stephane Boucher brought video gear to Embedded World 2018 and teamed up with Jacob Beningo to capture concise vendor interviews that focus on real product news. The videos showcase Percepio's new Tracealyzer with a drone demo, Intrinsic ID's method for creating device-unique IDs from manufacturing variations, and SEGGER's broader toolset including embOS now certified by TÜV SÜD. Watch for short demos and expert explanations.
Finally got a drone!
Stephane Boucher finally bought a DJI Phantom 4 and found it does more than boost his video production value, it’s also hugely fun to fly. He used the drone for an aerial shot at SEGGER’s anniversary and for a beach project where kids drew a turtle while a separate camera captured a side timelapse. The post highlights creative shot combinations and a reminder to fly where it is legal.
SEGGER's 25th Anniversary Video
Stephane Boucher spent a week at SEGGER's headquarters and distilled that visit into a tight, two-minute 25th anniversary video. The post highlights rising production value, thanks to softbox lighting and a two-camera setup that allows seamless wide-to-tight cuts and emotional close-ups. Stephane invites readers to watch full screen, leave feedback and thumbs-up on YouTube, and suggests future coverage like product launches or companies with happy engineers.
Went 280km/h (174mph) in a Porsche Panamera in Germany!
A week at SEGGER’s headquarters in Germany turned into more than a video shoot, it became a look inside a company that clearly runs on passion, trust, and a lot of teamwork. Stephane Boucher also gets an unforgettable autobahn ride in a Porsche Panamera, hitting 280 km/h along the way. Between interviews, B-roll, and a 25th anniversary celebration, he comes away impressed by both the people and the pace.
VERY Fast Japanese Sumo Robots
Japanese sumo robots can be oddly mesmerizing, and this short post captures that perfectly. Stephane Boucher shares a quick reaction to a video and points out the parts embedded engineers would want to hear about, like the sensors, microcontroller, algorithms, and design challenges behind the machine. It is more of a teaser than a teardown, but it makes a strong case for a deeper technical writeup.
Going back to Germany!
A conference conversation turned into a return trip to Germany for Stephane Boucher, this time to visit SEGGER’s headquarters in Dusseldorf and produce videos. The post shares how a chance introduction at ESC Boston led to the invitation, and it teases coverage from SEGGER’s 25th anniversary celebration. He also invites local tips and customer questions before the trip.
