Data Validity in Embedded Systems
Real-world sensors and serial links often deliver garbage, and embedded software must recognize and handle invalid inputs before they cause failures. In this post Stephen Friederichs walks through practical validity checks, from simple range tests and sentinel values to hardware status flags and timing checks for stale data. He also outlines safe responses, from graceful degradation to fail-safe shutdowns, so firmware behaves predictably in the unexpected.
Embedded Software Creation II - European Normative & Legislation
If you are building a product for the European market, standards and directives can determine whether it can legally ship with a CE mark. Maykel Alonso breaks down how European normative and legislation fit together, what “New Approach” and “Global Approach” mean, and which directives commonly affect embedded products. The post also points engineers to the Official Journal of the European Union and a useful directive reference table.
Remember Y2K?
There was fear that the turn of the century at the end of 1999 would cause problems with many embedded systems. There is evidence that the same issue may occur in 2038.
Embedded Software Creation II - European Normative & Legislation
If you are building a product for the European market, standards and directives can determine whether it can legally ship with a CE mark. Maykel Alonso breaks down how European normative and legislation fit together, what “New Approach” and “Global Approach” mean, and which directives commonly affect embedded products. The post also points engineers to the Official Journal of the European Union and a useful directive reference table.
Embedded Development Is Broken. Here's the Strategy I'm Betting My Company On.
Here's a 79-word summary: Embedded software complexity is growing about 4x per decade while developer productivity grows 1.5x, and regulations like the EU CRA are widening the gap further. After running a firmware services company through this shift, I've come to see three things separating the teams that are pulling ahead: using AI where the work is actually hard, designing security in from day one, and reading the standards that govern their market (62304, 26262, CRA) before writing code, not after.
Your Unit Tests Won't Find the Wolves: Why Embedded Developers Should Be Fuzzing
You test the happy paths. You check the well-formatted packets and the expected inputs. But real users don't read manuals, and real data doesn't follow your protocol spec. Fuzzing throws millions of randomized inputs at your code to find the crashes you never thought to look for. Here's why it matters for embedded systems.
