These blog posts are about development tools of relevance to embedded software designers.

Inexpensive Firmware Process Improvements for Small Teams

Learn practical and easy-to-apply software process improvements that even the smallest design teams can use to make firmware easier to code, debug and test, with a tools cost of less than $600.

How to Prevent and Detect Stack Overflow

The safety and security of every embedded system is dependent upon proper operation of the stack (or stacks, if there are multiple). If a stack overflow occurs, a major or minor malfunction is very likely to follow. Despite this, the stack in the majority of embedded systems is sized based on nothing more than a hunch. As well, run-time stack monitoring is too seldom used.

Patterns of Thinking in Software Development

Metaphors and analogies can be valuable tools for learning new software concepts and tapping subject matter expertise during embedded software development.

2016 Safety & Security Survey

Barr Group's 2016 Embedded Systems Safety & Security Survey had participation from more than 2,500 embedded systems design engineers and revealed a number of interesting trends in the embedded industry.

How to Prevent Bugs in Embedded Software with TDD

It’s a fact: When you create code, you create bugs. Listen in as we present the finer points of Test-Driven Development (TDD) - a game-changing approach to embedded software development that can greatly reduce bugs early in the development process. TDD is not a debugging technique but rather an approach to proactively preventing defects.

How to Make Embedded Software Smaller and Faster

Many embedded systems have reliability, cost, and performance requirements that demand performance be designed into the system, from architecture to algorithms to data structures to coding guidelines.

Pros and Cons of AndroidOS for Embedded Systems

Android software architecture, hardware requirements, licensing terms, and security considerations with a few case studies to illustrate the pros and cons of building embedded systems around the AndroidOS.

Portable Fixed-Width Integers in C

For embedded software developers, the most significant improvements to the C programming language made in the ISO C99 standard update are in the new <stdint.h> header file. Learn the typedef names for the new fixed width integer data types, to make hardware interfacing in C easier. 

Introduction to On-Chip Debug

Motorola's Background Debug Mode is one of a variety of on-chip debug technologies. Collectively, they offer some of the best features of debug monitors and in-circuit emulators—with far less headache and cost.

KVM: A Small Java Virtual Machine for J2ME

Sun's K Virtual Machine gives embedded developers a virtual kick in the pants. KVM makes it possible to, for the first time, run Java programs on any 16-bit processor with 128KB of available memory.

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