The Embedded Master Blog
Welcome to The Embedded Master, the expert resource for embedded systems designers and developers. Daily news, insightful blogs, video demos, monthly contests, whitepapers and more for the embedded community
Robust Design: Ambiguity and Uncertainty
Undetected ambiguity is the bane of designers. Unfortunately, the opportunities for ambiguity to manifest in our specifications and designs are numerous, and they are easy to miss. Worse, when an ambiguity is discovered because two or more groups on a design team interpreted some information differently, the last person or team that touched the system often gets the blame – and that almost ...... Read More
Comments (2)Extreme Processing Thresholds
Just in the past few weeks there have been two value-line processor announcements that push the lower limit for pricing. STMicroelectronics’ 32-bit Cortex-M3 value line processors are available starting at $0.85, and Texas Instruments’ 16-bit MSP430 are available starting at $0.25. These announcements follow the earlier announcement that NXP’s 32-bit Cortex-M0 processors are a ...... Read More
Comments (0)Question of the Week: You know you're an embedded developer when …
Two recent posts reminded me once again of a challenge that I think all embedded developers run up against. In John SloanÕs comment in a LinkedIn discussion asking "Do most embedded software developers also have hardware design experience too," he volunteers: "… When people ask me what I do for a living, I seldom say "embedded development" because even I don’t really know w ...... Read More
Comments (56)Robust Design: Best Guesses
An important realization about building robust systems is that the design decisions and trade-offs we make are based on our best guesses. As designers, we must rely on best guesses because it is impossible to describe a “perfect and complete” specification for all but the most simple, constrained, and isolated systems. A “perfect and complete” specification is a my ...... Read More
Comments (16)The (Embedded) Revolution Will be Televised
Our definition of “embedded system” has evolved over time and today’s embedded systems do far more than we envisioned just a few short years ago. The PC is partially to blame and the expansive growth in what embedded systems can do parallels the expansive growth in PC capabilities. Consider that for a moment. When the IBM PC first appeared in 1981, it could be purchased with e ...... Read More
Comments (8)Multicore Confessions: How to Get a Multicore Processor that's Programmer Friendly
Edward Richards, a Senior Field Applications Engineer for Green Hills Software, had a confession to make at the Real Time Embedded Computing Conference (RTECC) held in Santa Clara recently. No matter the processor architecture in use, he had no more single-core customers in Silicon Valley. All of his clients had moved to multicore platforms. Now even though Richards’ world doesn’t en ...... Read More
Comments (2)21st-Century Digital Signage: Big Embedded Systems with PC-Class Multicore Processing can do Truly Amazing Things
In January at the National Retail Federation (NRF) Annual Convention and Expo held in New York City, Microsoft and Intel rolled out a technology concept demonstration vehicle that very graphically illustrates what you get when you throw PC-class processing power at embedded design. The technology demonstration vehicle is a 2-panel digital sign. It’s no ordinary sign. This sucker’s hu ...... Read More
Comments (2)Battle Brewing for the Future of Low-Power, Embedded Memory in Portable, Mobile Devices
Perhaps you saw the recent Rambus announcement of Mobile XDR, a new high-speed serial interface design for low-power embedded memory—specifically DRAM. Perhaps you didn’t realize that the Rambus announcement is a shot in a growing battle for domination of embedded memory-subsystem design. This battle will take place over the next couple of years, perhaps culminating in market leaders ...... Read More
Comments (2)