by Niall Murphy

When it comes to safety-critical applications, sometimes you have to protect users from the software. And sometimes you have to protect users from themselves.

by Niall Murphy

To keep a watchdog timer from resetting your system, you've got to kick it regularly. But that's not all there is to watchdog science. We will examine the use and testing of a watchdog, as well as the integration of a watchdog into a multitasking environment.

by Nathan Tennies

Whether you are creating an operating system, firmware, or even device drivers, the way you write the software could affect the power consumption of the resulting product. Here are four approaches to minimizing power consumption through software.

by Michael Barr

Embedded software developers operate in a perfect digital environment but must interact with the imperfect analog real world. To do this it's essential to know how to perform calibration of inputs and sensors.

by Michael Barr

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.

by Michael Barr

SRAM or DRAM? EEPROM or flash? What types of memory will you use in your next embedded systems design?

by Michael Barr

Most control systems utilize feedback in some manner. Here's a look at several fundamental feedback mechanisms, culminating in a description of a basic PID controller.

by Christopher Brown and Michael Barr

Which is the most convenient end on your system? The choices are big endian and little endian.

Some human languages are read and written from left to right; others from right to left. A similar issue arises in the field of computers, involving the representation of numbers.

by Stuart Ball and Michael Barr

Counter units (aka, timer units) are crucial components of most embedded systems and included in many microcontrollers. Here's a primer on the hardware.

by Nigel Jones

With all the automation available today, it's easy for programmers to overlook costly overhead introduced into machine code by the compiler. Interrupt handlers are one key area worthy of a closer inspection.