How-to Articles

Rethinking basic programming techniques can avoid many of the problems that heap-based memory management poses for embedded real-time system designs.

RedBoot is a portable, open-source ROM monitor that offers a download and debug environment. What more could you want?

Many embedded developers today use a ROM- or flash-resident software program that provides functionality such as loading and running application software, scripting, read/write access to processor registers, and memory dumps. A ROM monitor, as it is often called, can be a useful and far less expensive debugging tool than an in-circuit emulator.

The first task when using any new real-time operating system (RTOS) is to get it up and running on your hardware. The open-source eCos RTOS makes that part pretty easy.

The way you write software can affect the power consumption of the resulting product. Here are four approaches to minimizing power consumption through software.

The question "What is the difference between a mutex and a semaphore?" is short and easily phrased.  Answering it is more difficult.  In this first installment of a series of articles on the proper use of a real-time operating system (RTOS), we examine the important differences between a mutex and a semaphore.

A C coding standard can help keep bugs out of embedded software by leveraging common language features and development tools. The rules below are drawn from the same thinking behind Barr Group's Embedded C Coding Standard (BARR-C:2018), which is available as a free PDF download.

This second article on enforceable coding standards for embedded systems adds a set of additional bug-killing rules for using certain C keywords and naming global variables.

An object-oriented framework can be used to create safe, testable and tunable motion control systems.

As Internet connectivity advances, the transportation, automotive, medical device, smart grid and other industry sectors have become more dependent on embedded software. But is software reliable?