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,...
Ten Little Algorithms, Part 2: The Single-Pole Low-Pass Filter
●2 commentsOther articles in this series: Part 1: Russian Peasant Multiplication I’m writing this article in a room with a bunch of other people talking, and while sometimes I wish they would just SHUT UP, it would be better if I could just...
Using the Beaglebone PRU to achieve realtime at low cost
●4 commentsIntroduction I work as an engineer in a synchrotron facility. A few weeks ago, I helped the people in charge of the power supply developments to integrate a realtime control algorithm on a prototype platform: a BeagleBone Black (BBB) running...
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...
Linear Feedback Shift Registers for the Uninitiated, Part XI: Pseudorandom Number Generation
Last time we looked at the use of LFSRs in counters and position encoders. This time we’re going to look at pseudorandom number generation, and why you may — or may not — want to use LFSRs for this purpose. But first —...
Make Hardware Great Again
By now you're aware of the collective angst in the US about 5G. Why is the US not a leader in 5G ? Could that also happen -- indeed, is it happening -- in AI ? If we lead in other areas, why not 5G ? What makes it so hard ? This...
Intel 8088 - A blast from the past
The Intel 8088 is an 8 bit processor related to the 16 bit 8086. The Microcomputer class consisted of wire-wrapping the chips to perfboard using sockets.I had taken computers apart, soldered, etc., but had never used wire-wrapping to construct a...
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.
Favorite Tools: C++11 std::array
Many embedded software and firmware projects must be developed to high standards of reliability. To meet these reliability requirements, firmware project teams will consider many design tradeoffs. For example, an engineering team may avoid...
The Other Kind of Bypass Capacitor
●1 commentThere’s a type of bypass capacitor I’d like to talk about today. It’s not the usual power supply bypass capacitor, aka decoupling capacitor, which is used to provide local charge storage to an integrated circuit, so that the...
Vala applications on Embedded Linux: maybe a cleaver chice [part 1]
Vala is a sexy, open source, high level programming language that appeared in 2006, it counts with a modern typing system, is object oriented, compiled and statically typed, it has a almost identical syntax to C# and is maintained by GNOME. The...
How to Succeed in Motor Control: Olaus Magnus, Donald Rumsfeld, and YouTube
Almost four years ago, I had this insight — we were doing it wrong! Most of the application notes on motor control were about the core algorithms: various six-step or field-oriented control methods, with Park and Clarke transforms,...
