The New Forum is LIVE!
After months of hard word, I am very excited to introduce to you the new forum interface. Here are the key features:1- Easily add images to a post by drag & dropping the images in the editor2- Easily attach files to a...
Cortex-M Exception Handling (Part 2)
●1 commentThe first part of this article described the conditions for an exception request to be accepted by a Cortex-M processor, mainly concerning the relationship of its priority with respect to the current execution priority. This...
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...
Coding Step 4 - Design
Articles in this series: Coding Step 0 - Development Environments Coding Step 1 - Hello World and Makefiles Coding Step 2 - Source Control Coding Step 3 - High-Level Requirements Coding Step 4 - Design The last article in...
Ten Little Algorithms, Part 5: Quadratic Extremum Interpolation and Chandrupatla's Method
Today we will be drifting back into the topic of numerical methods, and look at an algorithm that takes in a series of discretely-sampled data points, and estimates the maximum value of the waveform they were sampled from.
Blogging Tutorial
This article will be updated on a regular basis based on your questions and feedback. Creating a new blog post Make sure your are logged in Click on 'Create new blog post' Although the online editor works pretty well and...
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...
Ten Little Algorithms, Part 4: Topological Sort
●1 commentOther articles in this series: Part 1: Russian Peasant Multiplication Part 2: The Single-Pole Low-Pass Filter Part 3: Welford’s Method (And Friends) Today we’re going to take a break from my usual focus on signal processing...
Ten Little Algorithms, Part 3: Welford's Method (and Friends)
●2 commentsOther articles in this series: Part 1: Russian Peasant Multiplication Part 2: The Single-Pole Low-Pass Filter Last time we talked about a low-pass filter, and we saw that a one-line algorithm could filter out high-frequency noise, and...
Coding Step 2 - Source Control
Articles in this series:Coding Step 0 - Development EnvironmentsCoding Step 1 - Hello World and MakefilesCoding Step 2 - Source ControlCoding Step 3 - High-Level RequirementsCoding Step 4 - DesignWhen I first started out in programming,...
How FPGAs work, and why you'll buy one
●2 commentsToday, pretty much everyone has a CPU, a DSP and a GPU, buried somewhere in their PC, phone, car, etc. Most don't know or care that they bought any of these, but they did. Will everyone, at some future point, also buy an FPGA? The market size...
From Baremetal to RTOS: A review of scheduling techniques
●5 commentsTransitioning from bare-metal embedded software development to a real-time operating system (RTOS) can be a difficult endeavor. Many developers struggle with the question of whether they should use an RTOS or simply use a bare-metal scheduler....
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...
Introduction to Microcontrollers - Further Beginnings
●3 commentsEmbedded Programming Basics This tutorial entry will discuss some further embedded programming basics that you will need to understand before proceeding on to the LED blinky and other example programs. We will do this by looking at the...
Introduction to Microcontrollers - Hello World
●3 comments[quicklinks] Embedded Hello World A standard first program on an embedded platform is the blinking LED. Getting an LED to blink demonstrates that you have your toolchain set up correctly, that you are able to download your program...
Round Round Get Around: Why Fixed-Point Right-Shifts Are Just Fine
Today’s topic is rounding in embedded systems, or more specifically, why you don’t need to worry about it in many cases.One of the issues faced in computer arithmetic is that exact arithmetic requires an ever-increasing bit length to...
From bare-metal to RTOS: 5 Reasons to use an RTOS
●1 commentDevelopers can come up with amazing and convoluted reasons to not use an RTOS. I have heard excuses ranging from they are too expensive (despite open source solutions) all the way to they aren’t efficient and use too much memory. In some...
Ten Little Algorithms, Part 3: Welford's Method (and Friends)
●2 commentsOther articles in this series: Part 1: Russian Peasant Multiplication Part 2: The Single-Pole Low-Pass Filter Last time we talked about a low-pass filter, and we saw that a one-line algorithm could filter out high-frequency noise, and...
Help, My Serial Data Has Been Framed: How To Handle Packets When All You Have Are Streams
●1 commentToday we're going to talk about data framing and something called COBS, which will make your life easier the next time you use serial communications on an embedded system -- but first, here's a quiz: Quick Diversion, Part I: Which of the...
Introduction to Microcontrollers - More On GPIO
●2 commentsNow that we have our LED Blinky program nailed down, it's time to look more closely at outputs, add button/switch inputs, and work with reading inputs and driving outputs based on those inputs. [quicklinks] It's ON - No, It's...
