How-to Articles

One of the least used but potentially most useful features of the C preprocessor is the ANSI-specified #error directive. Here's a look at a couple of clever uses for #error that have proven invaluable in embedded software development.

Bug fixes, patches, and third-party application programs are all possible in today’s more powerful embedded systems, but you need to plan for them at design time. This article shows you how.

Quite a few embedded systems include multiple processors. Sometimes these processors stand in isolation, but more often they're required to communicate over a multidrop bus such as EIA RS-485 or RS-422.

In recent years, the line between hardware and software has blurred. Hardware now engineers create the bulk of their new digital circuitry in programming languages such as VHDL and Verilog. This article will help you make sense of programmable logic.

Jump tables, also called branch tables, are an efficient means of handling similar events in software. Here's a look at the use of arrays of function pointers in C/C++ as jump tables.

Let's face it, there's nothing sexy about the topic of cross compilers. Embedded programmers couldn't get the job done without one, but spend very little time thinking about how they work or how they could make our work easier.

The 8051, 68HC11, and Microchip PIC are popular microcontrollers, but they aren't necessarily easy to program. This article shows how the use of ANSI C and compiler-specific constructs can help generate tighter code.

Designers of embedded systems face three significant challenges in today's ultra-competitive marketplace. Products must always: do more, cost less, and arrive to market faster. Fortunately, new flexible hardware design techniques are emerging from the study of reconfigurable computing.

The information that a user gets from a life-critical system may spell the difference between a slight mishap and a serious accident. This article addresses the issue of safety in the design of a user interface.