How to Deploy Local LLMs for Embedded Software Development: Terminology and Motivation
In this blog post series, I walk you through creating a fully local, offline AI pipeline. In this first post, I outline the motivation and relevant terminology that are important before we dive into hardware selection and implementation of the pipeline.
I Stopped Testing Embedded Systems by Hand. Here's What Replaced It.
Everardo Garcia walks through the shift from manual, terminal-based system-level testing to automated tests that run during development. He shows how OpenHTF (a framework originally built at Google for manufacturing lines) plus a laptop, a USB cable, and ~150 lines of Python closes the functional testing gap most embedded teams carry, and how spec-driven prompting with GitHub Copilot makes writing plugs and phases fast enough to keep up.
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.
Embedded Linux Board Farms 101: The Requirements That Actually Matter
When you keep your embedded Linux boards in a rack or remote lab, the "plug in HDMI" workflow breaks down fast. One bad kernel push and SSH never comes back. This post lays out the core requirements for a real board farm: out-of-band serial console access, remote power cycling, and scripted reimaging so you never need someone on-site who knows Linux. Once those primitives are in place, everyday smart home devices — Tasmota switches, Home Assistant, environmental sensors — become legitimate development tools that bring enterprise lab capabilities to a hobbyist budget. Includes a pre-flight checklist for transitioning from KVM-style access to a fully remote setup, and a preview of the full implementation presented at the Embedded Online Conference in May.
Debug, visualize and test embedded C/C++ through instrumentation
Instrumenting a firmware is a highly effective methodology for debugging and testing an embedded softwares. In this article, I will present a way of achieving this using Scrutiny, an open-source software suite developed as a personal initiative, designed to streamline debugging, telemetry, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing for embedded devices.
Breaking AES with an Oscilloscope
AES is a powerful encryption algorithm that protects some our most important secrets. But did you know that many devices are inadvertently leaking the value of their private key through their power pins?! Join me in this special preview of my upcoming workshop at the Embedded Systems Summit (14-16 October 2025 in San Jose, CA) as we explore the world of hardware security and discover just how easy it could be to break AES encryption with only an oscilloscope and some math.
Why Containers Are the Cheat Code for Embedded DevOps
Embedded software teams have long accepted toolchain setup as “part of the job,” but it’s a hidden productivity killer. Manual installs waste days, slow onboarding, and derail CI pipelines with “works on my machine” issues. While enterprise software solved this years ago with containerization, many embedded teams are still stuck replicating fragile environments. Containers offer a proven fix: a portable, reproducible build environment that works identically on laptops and CI servers. No brittle scripts, mismatched versions, or wasted time—just code that builds. IAR has gone further by delivering pre-built, performance-tuned Docker images for Arm, RISC-V, and Renesas architectures, ready for GitHub Actions and CI/CD pipelines. For regulated industries, containers simplify audits and compliance by enabling validation once and reuse everywhere. The result: faster onboarding, consistent builds, and stronger safety assurance. Containers aren’t a luxury—they’re the cheat code embedded teams need to modernize DevOps and compete effectively.
Getting Started With Zephyr: Using GDB To Fix a Driver Bug
In this blog post, I show how to use GDB to debug an issue encountered with a TSL2591 light sensor driver in Zephyr. The fix was submitted and successfully incorporated into The Zephyr Project.
3 Tips for Developing Embedded Systems with AI
Explore how to leverage AI in developing embedded systems with three practical tips, learn why documenting your workflows, supercharging testing and debugging, and adopting AI-assisted code generation can save time, reduce errors, and boost performance in your projects, and discover actionable insights to streamline development in resource-constrained environments, this blog explains how to prepare for AI integration while keeping the expertise of experienced engineers intact, offering real-world examples that show how even incremental AI adoption can revolutionize your development process, whether you’re new to AI or seeking to enhance existing practices, these strategies provide a clear roadmap to build smarter, more efficient embedded systems using AI.
How to Deploy Local LLMs for Embedded Software Development: Terminology and Motivation
In this blog post series, I walk you through creating a fully local, offline AI pipeline. In this first post, I outline the motivation and relevant terminology that are important before we dive into hardware selection and implementation of the pipeline.
Adventures in Signal Processing with Python
Jason Sachs shows how PyLab (numpy, scipy, matplotlib) can handle many signal-processing and visualization tasks engineers usually reach for MATLAB to do. He walks through practical examples including PWM ripple, two pole RC filters, and symbolic math with SymPy, and shares real-world installation tips and trade-offs. The post closes with pointers to IPython and pandas to speed interactive analysis and data handling.
Analyzing the Linker Map file with a little help from the ELF and the DWARF
Running out of Flash or RAM is a familiar pain for firmware engineers, and the linker map only tells part of the story. This post shows how to combine the linker MAP with ELF symbol tables and DWARF debug info to recover static symbols, sizes, and source files that the map omits. It also describes a C# WinForms viewer that automates the parsing with binutils and helps you spot module and symbol-level memory waste.
3 Tips for Developing Embedded Systems with AI
Explore how to leverage AI in developing embedded systems with three practical tips, learn why documenting your workflows, supercharging testing and debugging, and adopting AI-assisted code generation can save time, reduce errors, and boost performance in your projects, and discover actionable insights to streamline development in resource-constrained environments, this blog explains how to prepare for AI integration while keeping the expertise of experienced engineers intact, offering real-world examples that show how even incremental AI adoption can revolutionize your development process, whether you’re new to AI or seeking to enhance existing practices, these strategies provide a clear roadmap to build smarter, more efficient embedded systems using AI.
VHDL tutorial - A practical example - part 3 - VHDL testbench
Gene Breniman walks a complete VHDL testbench workflow for a CPLD-based data acquisition engine, from Xilinx ISE testbench generation to stimulus processes. He shows clock and SPI gating, a simulated ADC data generator tied to ADC_LRCK and ADC_BCK, and how simulation revealed a timing bug in the nvSRAM header that was then fixed in the VHDL. Practical and hands-on for verification work.
VHDL tutorial - part 2 - Testbench
In this follow-up Gene Breniman builds a VHDL testbench in Xilinx ISE, showing how to generate a continuous master clock, apply a power-on reset, and sequence register strobes to change clock divisors. He walks through timing waits and observation delays needed to verify ADC clock rates. The article also shows how simulation exposed a copy-paste bug in the original design.
Important Programming Concepts (Even on Embedded Systems) Part I: Idempotence
Idempotence is a simple design principle that prevents duplicate effects when operations are retried or repeated. Jason Sachs shows why it matters in embedded systems, from HTTP submit buttons and capacitive touch inputs to garage-door remotes and SPI DAC writes. Read this post to learn three practical idempotent techniques and when redundant writes are a sensible reliability trade-off.
Simulating Your Embedded Project on Your Computer (Part 1)
Having a simulation of your embedded project is like having a superpower that improves the quality and pace of your development ten times over! To be useful, though, it can't take longer to develop the simulation than it takes to develop the application code and for many simulation techniques "the juice isn't worth the squeeze"! In this two-part blog series, I'll share with you the arguments in favor of simulation (so, hopefully, you too believe in its value) and I'll show you what works (and what doesn't work) to help you to simply, easily, and quickly simulate your embedded project on your computer.
Write Better Code with Block Diagrams and Flowcharts
Reading and writing code without architectural diagrams is like trying to follow complex instructions without any explanatory pictures: nigh impossible! By taking the time to draw out the block diagrams and flowcharts for your code, you can help identify problems before they arise and make your code easier to design, write, test, and debug. In this article, I'll briefly justify the importance of architectural drawings such as block diagrams and flowcharts and then teach you what they are and how to draw them. Using two simple examples, you'll see first-hand how these drawings can significantly amplify your understanding of a piece of code. Additionally, I'll give you a few tips for how to implement each drawing once you've completed it and I'll share with you a few neat tools to help you complete your next set of drawings.
Favorite Software AND Hardware Tools for Embedded Systems Development
Tool choice can make or break an embedded project, and Stephane Boucher gathered developers' favorite hardware and software picks from the Embedded Online Conference into one handy roundup. The post points to a companion video and lists concrete tools from oscilloscopes and logic analyzers to J-Link probes, Python, unit-test frameworks, and soldering irons. It is a quick, practical peek at what experienced embedded engineers actually use.
Analyzing the Linker Map file with a little help from the ELF and the DWARF
Running out of Flash or RAM is a familiar pain for firmware engineers, and the linker map only tells part of the story. This post shows how to combine the linker MAP with ELF symbol tables and DWARF debug info to recover static symbols, sizes, and source files that the map omits. It also describes a C# WinForms viewer that automates the parsing with binutils and helps you spot module and symbol-level memory waste.
VHDL tutorial - A practical example - part 3 - VHDL testbench
Gene Breniman walks a complete VHDL testbench workflow for a CPLD-based data acquisition engine, from Xilinx ISE testbench generation to stimulus processes. He shows clock and SPI gating, a simulated ADC data generator tied to ADC_LRCK and ADC_BCK, and how simulation revealed a timing bug in the nvSRAM header that was then fixed in the VHDL. Practical and hands-on for verification work.
Adventures in Signal Processing with Python
Jason Sachs shows how PyLab (numpy, scipy, matplotlib) can handle many signal-processing and visualization tasks engineers usually reach for MATLAB to do. He walks through practical examples including PWM ripple, two pole RC filters, and symbolic math with SymPy, and shares real-world installation tips and trade-offs. The post closes with pointers to IPython and pandas to speed interactive analysis and data handling.
MSP430 Launchpad Tutorial - Part 1 - Basics
A working button-driven LED on the MSP430 LaunchPad is only a few steps away. Enrico Garante walks through creating a CCS project, setting P1.0 as the LED output and enabling P1.3 button interrupts, then shows the interrupt service routine that toggles the LED. The short tutorial covers stopping the watchdog, configuring P1DIR/P1OUT, clearing flags, and launching the code so you can get blinking quickly.
VHDL tutorial - part 2 - Testbench
In this follow-up Gene Breniman builds a VHDL testbench in Xilinx ISE, showing how to generate a continuous master clock, apply a power-on reset, and sequence register strobes to change clock divisors. He walks through timing waits and observation delays needed to verify ADC clock rates. The article also shows how simulation exposed a copy-paste bug in the original design.
Important Programming Concepts (Even on Embedded Systems) Part I: Idempotence
Idempotence is a simple design principle that prevents duplicate effects when operations are retried or repeated. Jason Sachs shows why it matters in embedded systems, from HTTP submit buttons and capacitive touch inputs to garage-door remotes and SPI DAC writes. Read this post to learn three practical idempotent techniques and when redundant writes are a sensible reliability trade-off.
Using the C language to program the am335x PRU
Assembly-language PRU development is tedious and error prone, so Fabien Le Mentec shows how to use TI's PRU C toolchain to simplify the workflow. He walks through installing the CGT package, integrating the compiler with a modified prussdrv loader to honor the _c_int00 start symbol, and provides a BeagleBone Black example with build scripts and sources on GitHub. The post also covers inline assembly constraints and code-size tradeoffs.
10 Software Tools You Should Know
Embedded work gets a lot easier when you have the right software stack, and Jason Sachs lays out the tools he leans on every day. From revision control and file comparison to build systems, scripting, analysis, documentation, QA, and command-line utilities, he focuses on practical picks that save time and reduce mistakes. The list is opinionated, but it is full of the kind of workflow advice that helps engineers stay productive.
Unit Tests for Embedded Code
Unit tests are one of the most effective ways to catch logic bugs early and protect embedded firmware against regressions. Stephen Friederichs explains why unit testing matters for microcontroller code, when to test, and the trade-offs between on-target and hosted approaches, with practical advice on stubbing, using the Check framework, simulators, and coverage tools to make testing realistic for embedded projects.
Visual Studio Code Extensions for Embedded Software Development
Visual Studio Code can be a solid embedded development environment, if you equip it with the right extensions. Jacob Beningo walks through tools for Cortex-M debugging, register and RTOS inspection, build system support, formatting, linting, and vendor-specific workflows. It is a practical tour of the extensions that help VS Code feel much less like a general-purpose editor and more like an embedded IDE.
