My friend, the compiler
Modern compilers were given great powers, but we don't always know where and when they'll use them. This may cause us to either worry needlessly or trust unjustifiably, as demonstrated by a little example in this post.
What I Learned From Crashing and Burning in Grad School
Have you ever felt so consumed by something that it started to crowd other parts of your life? So obsessed with success in a particular area that you could hardly think about anything else? I found myself in exactly that spot in 2018 when I first started graduate school; I wanted to succeed so badly that I worked myself to the bone and I let even my marriage and my health suffer in service to it. This state of being is, believe it or not, NOT conducive to success, in neither the long-term nor the short-term. But it took two authors and one pivotal book for me to understand that, to see the pit I had dug for myself, and to begin the path back out. In this blog, I want to share with you my journey in the hopes that you can avoid the mistakes I made.
Stand-by or boot-up
Many factors affect the usability of devices - a key one is how long it takes to start up.
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.
Memory Mapped I/O in C
Interacting with memory mapped device registers is at the base of all embedded development. Let's explore what tools the C language - standard of the industry - provide the developer with to face this task.
Here Comes The Noise!
Noise. That awful thing which nobody wants that most sadly never learn about. It's time to change that with this blog post.
You Don't Need an RTOS (Part 4)
In this fourth (and final!) article I'll share with you the last of the inter-process communication (IPC) methods I mentioned in Part 3: mailboxes/queues, counting semaphores, the Observer pattern, and something I'm calling a "marquee". When we're done, we'll have created the scaffolding for tasks to interact in all sorts of different the ways. Additionally, I'll share with you another alternative design for a non-preemptive scheduler called a dispatch queue that is simple to conceptualize and, like the time-triggered scheduler, can help you schedule some of your most difficult task sets.
7 Essential Steps for Reducing Power Consumption in Embedded Devices
Reducing the amount of power your embedded device is consuming is not trivial. With so many devices moving to battery operations today, maximizing battery life can be the difference between a happy, raving customer and an unhappy one that ruins your company's reputation. This post explores seven steps for optimizing your embedded systems' power consumption. You'll gain insights into the steps and techniques necessary along with receiving a few resources to help you on your journey.
How to Read a Power MOSFET Datasheet
One 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...
Embedded Systems Roadmaps
What skills should every embedded systems engineer have? What should you study next to improve yourself as an embedded systems engineer? In this article I'll share with you a few lists from well-respected sources that seek to answer these questions, with the hope of helping provide you a path to mastery. Whether you've only just finished your first Arduino project or you've been building embedded systems for decades, I believe there's something in here for everyone to help improve themselves as embedded systems engineers.
You Don't Need an RTOS (Part 1)
In this first article, we'll compare our two contenders, the superloop and the RTOS. We'll define a few terms that help us describe exactly what functions a scheduler does and why an RTOS can help make certain systems work that wouldn't with a superloop. By the end of this article, you'll be able to: - Measure or calculate the deadlines, periods, and worst-case execution times for each task in your system, - Determine, using either a response-time analysis or a utilization test, if that set of tasks is schedulable using either a superloop or an RTOS, and - Assign RTOS task priorities optimally.
Memory Mapped I/O in C
Interacting with memory mapped device registers is at the base of all embedded development. Let's explore what tools the C language - standard of the industry - provide the developer with to face this task.
Cracking the (embedded) Coding Interview
You never forget the day you land your first job. The thrill of receiving that call from your recruiter to tell you that you bagged your dream role! The relief when you finally see the offer letter you’ve been working towards for...
Lost Secrets of the H-Bridge, Part V: Gate Drives for Dummies
Learn the most important issues in power MOSFET and IGBT gate drives: - Transistor behavior during switching - Calculating turn-on and turn-off times - Passive components used between gate drive IC and transistor - Reverse recovery - Capacitively-coupled spurious turn-on - Factors that influence a good choice of turn-on and turn-off times - Gate drive supply voltage management - Bootstrap gate drives - Design issues impacting reliability
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.
Creating a Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) in C
In my last post, C to C++: Using Abstract Interfaces to Create Hardware Abstraction Layers (HAL), I discussed how vital hardware abstraction layers are and how to use a C++ abstract interface to create them. You may be thinking, that’s great for C++, but I work in C! How do I create a HAL that can easily swap in and out different drivers? In today’s post, I will walk through exactly how to do that while using the I2C bus as an example.
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...
