Review: Prototype to Product
Prototype to Product: A Practical Guide for Getting to Market, by Alan Cohen, is a must-read for anyone involved in product development, whether in a technical, management, or executive role. I was reminded of it by Cohen's recent...
Definite Article: Notes on Traceability
Electronic component distibutor Digi-Key recently announced part tracing for surface-mount components purchased in cut-tape form. This is a big deal, and it’s a feature that is a good example of traceability. Some thing or process that has...
Learning From Engineering Failures
IntroductionI'm an informal student of engineering failures. They guide a lot of my attitude and approach towards engineering.This is rooted in two of my favorite quotes:George Santayana: Those who do not remember the past are condemned...
Acceptance Tests vs. TDD
The Question Our software book club at work is reading Michael Feathers' Working Effectively with Legacy Code. This is an outstanding book that's worth re-reading every few years. This week, we went over Chapter 8, "How Do...
My Guiding Principles As An Engineer
These are my guiding principles as an embedded systems software engineer, forged over 40 years of experience. They shape the way I work and approach problems, and maintain my attitude in the face of adversity. You may find them useful as...
Dumb Embedded System Mistakes: Running The Wrong Code
Contents Introduction The Mistake Causes The Strategy Marking Embedded Linux Rootfs Overlay Files To Mark Marker Lines Script C/C++ Source Modifications Linux...
Advice For High School Students
Contents Introduction My Education Experience My Career Experience My Advice Study Habits Continuous Learning Math Hands-On Try It Out Soft Skills ...
Your Career Archive
Clive Maxfield and Adam Taylor recently published a series of blog posts about how to get and keep an engineering job, discussing preparation in high school through early career stages. I've just started a new job, and wanted to add...
Painting with Light to Measure Time
Recently I was faced with a dilemma while working from home. I needed to verify an implementation of first-order sigma-delta modulation used to adjust LED brightness. (I have described this in more detail in Modulation Alternatives for the...
Review: Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers
Full disclosure: I was given a free copy of this book for evaluation.Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers: Building real-time embedded systems using FreeRTOS, STM32 MCUs, and SEGGER debug tools by Brian Amos is an outstanding book. It lives...
Introduction to Microcontrollers - Beginnings
●14 commentsWelcome to this Introduction to Microcontroller Programming tutorial series. If you are looking to learn the basics of embedded programming for microcontrollers (and a bit of embedded hardware design as well), I hope these tutorials will help you...
Thermistor signal conditioning: Dos and Don'ts, Tips and Tricks
●4 commentsIn an earlier blog entry, I mentioned this circuit for thermistor signal conditioning: It is worth a little more explanation on thermistor signal conditioning; it's something that's often done poorly, whereas it's among the easiest...
Boot sequence for an ARM based embedded system -2
●3 commentsIn the last post, we discussed about the startup execution sequence on an ARM based embedded system in broader terms. In this post, we are going to cover the details of a startup code.These details are also available through various ARM resources...
How to Read a Power MOSFET Datasheet
●6 commentsOne of my pet peeves is when my fellow engineers misinterpret component datasheets. This happened a few times recently in separate instances, all involving power MOSFETs. So it’s time for me to get on my soapbox. Listen up! I was going to post...
Chebyshev Approximation and How It Can Help You Save Money, Win Friends, and Influence People
●1 commentWell... maybe that's a stretch. I don't think I can recommend anything to help you win friends. Not my forte. But I am going to try to convince you why you should know about Chebyshev approximation, which is a technique for figuring out how...
MSP430 LaunchPad Tutorial - Part 4 - UART Transmission
●3 commentsToday we are going to learn how to communicate using UART with the Launchpad. For this purpose I will replace the default microcontroller that comes with the board with the MSP430G2553. It is the most powerful device in the MSP430 Value Line and...
Analyzing the Linker Map file with a little help from the ELF and the DWARF
●4 commentsWhen you're writing firmware, there always comes a time when you need to check the resources consumed by your efforts - perhaps because you're running out of RAM or Flash or you want to optimize something. The map file generated by your linker is...
How to Estimate Encoder Velocity Without Making Stupid Mistakes: Part I
●3 commentsHere's a common problem: you have a quadrature encoder to measure the angular position of a motor, and you want to know both the position and the velocity. How do you do it? Some people do it poorly -- this article is how not to be one of...
How to Build a Fixed-Point PI Controller That Just Works: Part II
●4 commentsIn Part I we talked about some of the issues around discrete-time proportional-integral (PI) controllers: various forms and whether to use the canonical form for z-transforms (don't do it!) order of operation in the integral term: whether to...
Boot Sequence for an ARM based embedded system
●6 commentsHello all, Allow me to introduce myself. I am Deeksha and I come from plains of North India. My tryst with embedded technologies has been 5 years long and every single day I am amazed with the vastness and learning involved. The thing with...
