I have been closely following the trajectory of RISC-V for some time now. The buzz surrounding this architecture is hard to ignore, as it promises a new era of freedom in processor design. My interest recently…
After 25 years of embedded systems development, I've spent countless hours tracking down bugs that manifested as mysterious lockups, intermittent crashes, or hardware that simply refused to cooperate. The techniques below represent the debugging toolkit I've…
I've been knee-deep in embedded systems and embedded firmware development since the late 90s back when 8-bit microcontrollers were still kings and debuggers were luxury items most of us couldn't afford. Recently, I was working with…
Your competitors are already using AI to develop embedded systems 3x faster. Here's the insider knowledge you need to catch up and get ahead. The Problem: Generic AI Tools Don't Understand Hardware We've all seen the…
If you’ve ever tried to get a firmware project off the ground using a complex microcontroller, you know the real challenge doesn’t always lie in writing code, it lies in understanding the system well enough to…
As an engineer, I can’t stand repetition. I’m always on the lookout for ways to automate anything that feels even slightly manual. Most of the time, development flows smoothly. But every now and then, something that…
One of my favorite creators on YouTube is Destin, of SmarterEveryDay fame. A few years ago, this mysterious object in the corner of his videos caught my eye. Every so often, the lights moved in what…
I recently asked my self-hosted Ollama server to write a haiku about firmware engineers. It came back with this: Code whispers life, Bridging silicon and soul, Invisible art. Surprisingly, it captured the essence of embedded firmware.…
I’ve spent over 20 years helping companies build embedded systems, from quick proof-of-concept demos to production hardware. Along the way, I’ve seen what makes projects succeed and what makes them fail. If you’re starting an embedded…
I’ve been using Gitea and Woodpecker CI for a while now, and they’ve become invaluable tools when working on larger projects or collaborating with multiple people. The ability to catch integration issues earlier, enforce clean workflows,…