Embedded Computing Design

The development of the hardware and software should be done in a cooperative fashion.

Self-testing is different for every embedded device. The only constant is the likelihood of failure.

Embedded developers have always needed fine-grain control of code generation because every embedded system is unique, and the priorities and requirements vary from one system to another.

Lessons learned from experience ? commonly from solving a problem ? are often so much more effective than any amount of reading in books (or blogs!) ? and this is how I learned about endianness.

User interaction with an embedded system might be something very slick - touch screen LCDs seem to be fitted to everything nowadays. But sometimes a simple LED indicator is enough.

Open source plays a big role here. And it's free, right?

Power consumption of embedded systems continues to be a hot topic (no pun intended). And there?s one aspect of designing for low power that should be placed under the spotlight?the Power Pyramid.

Low power design, until only recently, would have been considered purely a hardware issue, but it is now very much on the agenda for software developers.

Smart phones are ubiquitous and it is worth considering how their design has been influenced by consideration of power.

There is a good, albeit rather general, rule that applies to the management of a successful business: focus on what you do well, then do it better than everybody else.

Today, for a change, instead of discussing some embedded software technology, I would like to put forward a concept for a new product.

If a hardware design flaw is located late in the development process, it may be too late to fix it economically, so the only option is to accommodate the problem in software.

Should you purchase a commercial RTOS or write your own?

Anyone working with embedded systems software is likely to be somewhat familiar with RTOSs. I?d like to give you some insight into the business of buying and selling such software products.

There are a great many programming languages in use today and many more that have fallen into disuse over the years. A challenge has always been standardization. Just about everyone would concur...

When thinking about this blog, I was reminded of an old joke: There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who do not. Sorry, but it still makes me smile Now to...

Traditionally, embedded software was always written in assembly language. This is no longer the case and C and C++ are the dominant languages favored by most embedded developers. However, if code...