Skills For Embedded Systems Software Developers
Contents: Introduction Do I Need To Be An Expert In Everything? How Much Time Do I need? Do I need A College Degree? Why Is The List So Big? Do I Really Need All These Things? The Skills Software Hardware Software Development...
Five ‘80s Movies that Inspired Me to Become an Engineer
Five ‘80s Movies that Inspired Me to Become an EngineerMovies and pop culture can incredibly impact society, particularly children. However, we never really know what conversation, demonstration, or movie could inspire someone to become an...
3 Overlooked Embedded Software Elements
Have you ever wondered, while you and your team are busy writing software if the foundation of how embedded software systems are built has changed and left you in the dust? What if while you were busily focusing on getting your product out the...
Learning A New Microcontroller
Contents: Introduction Background For The Beginner The Peripherals System Complexity Support Software Do It Like Phil The Programs GPIO And Timers UART And Timers I2C/SPI PWM ADC Go Crazy And Combine Them All WET And DRY...
Development of the MOS Technology 6502: A Historical Perspective
One ubiquitous microprocessor of the late 1970s and 1980s was the MOS Technology MCS 6502. I included a section on the development of the 6502 in Part 2 of Supply Chain Games, and have posted it as an excerpt here, as I believe it is deserving...
Supply Chain Games: What Have We Learned From the Great Semiconductor Shortage of 2021? (Part 2)
Welcome back! Today we’re going to zoom around again in some odd directions, and give a roundabout introduction to the semiconductor industry, touching on some of the following questions: How do semiconductors get designed and...
Patterns of Thinking: Metaphors in Programming
Several years ago, I once attended an “Object-Oriented Analysis and Design” training. As most such courses go, the instructor began with brushing up on the fundamental OO concepts. When explaining inheritance, the instructor spontaneously...
Reading and Understanding Profitability Metrics from Financial Statements
Whoa! That has got to be the most serious-minded title I’ve ever written. Profitability Metrics from Financial Statements, indeed. I’m still writing Part 2 of my Supply Chain Games article, and I was about to mention something about...
A Second Look at Slew Rate Limiters
I recently had to pick a slew rate for a current waveform, and I got this feeling of déjà vu… hadn’t I gone through this effort already? So I looked, and lo and behold, way back in 2014 I wrote an article titled Slew Rate...
Supply Chain Games: What Have We Learned From the Great Semiconductor Shortage of 2021? (Part 1)
So by now I’m sure you’ve heard about the semiconductor shortage of 2021. For a few complicated reasons, demand is greater than supply, and not everybody who wants to buy integrated circuits can do so. Today we’re going to try...
The three laws of safe embedded systems
This short article is part of an ongoing series in which I aim to explore some techniques that may be useful for developers and organisations that are beginning their first safety-related embedded project.
Mutex vs. Semaphore - Part 1
It never ceases to amaze me how often I see postings in forums asking the difference between a semaphore and a mutex. Probably what baffles me more is that over 90% of the time the responses given are either incorrect or missing the key...
C to C++: 3 Proven Techniques for Embedded Systems Transformation
For 50 years, the C programming language has dominated the embedded software industry. Even today, more than 80% of embedded projects are using C; however, over the last few years, many teams have begun transitioning from C to C++. C++ offers...
A Beginner's Guide to Embedded Systems
I was in my Junior year of college when I first learned about embedded systems. Sure, I’d heard about this mystical world of sensors and IoT, the same way I’d heard about thermonuclear astrophysics; But, the phrase “embedded systems”...
Getting Started With Embedded Linux - From Nothing To A Login Prompt
One of the famous observations that have been made related to embedded systems is referred to as “Moore’s Law”, which states that the number of transistors in integrated circuits doubles every year. This observation has held mostly true...
Tenderfoot: Embedded Software and Firmware Specialties
Once upon a time (seven years ago) I answered a question on Stack Overflow. Then Stephane suggested I turn that answer into a blog post. Great idea! This post dives deeper into the original question: “Is it possible to fragment this field...
10 Software Tools You Should Know
Unless you're designing small analog electronic circuits, it's pretty hard these days to get things done in embedded systems design without the help of computers. I thought I'd share a list of software tools that help me get my job done. Most of...
OOKLONE: a cheap RF 433.92MHz OOK frame cloner
Introduction A few weeks ago, I bought a set of cheap wireless outlets and reimplemented the protocol for further inclusion in a domotics platform. I wrote a post about it here: http://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/620.php Following...
Donald Knuth Is the Root of All Premature Optimization
This article is about something profound that a brilliant young professor at Stanford wrote nearly 45 years ago, and now we’re all stuck with it. TL;DR The idea, basically, is that even though optimization of computer software to execute...
Zebras Hate You For No Reason: Why Amdahl's Law is Misleading in a World of Cats (And Maybe in Ours Too)
I’ve been wasting far too much of my free time lately on this stupid addicting game called the Kittens Game. It starts so innocently. You are a kitten in a catnip forest. Gather catnip. And you click on Gather catnip and off you go....
