Embedded Software Blog
Posted Dec 21, 2009, by
Colin Walls
 Like
most people nowadays, I have a selection of electronic devices
that have become part of the fabric of my life. I have certain
expectations: I want a device to do what it is supposed to do. I
want it to be easy to use. I am after reliability. I want it to
consume the minimum amount of power - either to conserve battery
life or to simply be environmentally friendly. Lastly, I want the
device to be
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Tags:
Low Power,
RTOS,
embedded software
Posted Dec 14, 2009, by
Colin Walls
The
Agile methodology has been talked about for some years. To be frank,
I have given the matter very little attention - I just had a basic
idea of what it was all about. I suppose I had a feeling that the
approach was rather chaotic and disorganized, which is at odds with
my view of what programming should be like. However, I attended a
talk at a conference recently which changed my mind. The presenter
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Tags:
embedded software,
Waterfall,
Agile
Posted Dec 7, 2009, by Colin
Walls
Last
week I attended a conference in Grenoble, France. For some years
there has been an annual event focussed on intellectual property
[IP] and the broad area hardware design reusability. This year it
was extended to encompass embedded systems as well - the last of the
three days was largely dedicated to this topic. I submitted some
proposals for papers and two were accepted. Hence my attendance. A
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Tags:
C,
development tools,
Android,
dynamic memory,
embedded software
Posted Nov 30, 2009, by
Colin Walls
I
recently received an email from a regular reader of this blog. I am
always very happy to receive feedback, comments and suggestions. In
this case, it was a suggestion for a topic to address, which was
particularly welcome. The writer wanted me to talk about blocking
and non-blocking APIs
At the heart of a real time operating system
[RTOS] is the kernel, which is comprised of the task scheduler
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Tags:
embedded software,
Nucleus,
API,
RTOS
Posted Nov 23, 2009, by
Colin Walls
It
was well over 10 years ago and I was working a trade show booth with
a techie colleague. It was quiet and we were bored. We chatted about
things that interested us and eventually settled on our common
ground: embedded software. He made a reference to back in the 8 bit
days. I questioned this: We are in the 8 bit days now!. He did
not believe me
It was not that he thought I was deceiving him
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Tags:
development tools,
embedded software,
automotive,
RTOS,
Low Power,
multi-core
Posted Nov 16, 2009, by
Colin Walls
As
I am still off on my vacation, we have another guest blogger. This
time it is Meador Inge, a member of the Mentor Graphics embedded
software products engineering team, who, just like Scott last week,
has chosen a subject that interests me greatly and, by coincidence,
picks up on theme that I highlighted recently. -Colin C is great,
but C alone makes you a bad programmer. My introduction into
computing
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Tags:
embedded software,
programming languages,
C
Posted Nov 12, 2009, by
Colin Walls
As
I am off on a weeks vacation in the sun, I thought it would be
interesting to ask a couple of friends/colleagues write some blogs.
First up, we have Scott Salzwedel, who is looking at a topic close
to my heart. -Colin Have you seen the latest Droid TV spot? Its
pretty awesome. The commercial opens with some stealth jets flying
in formation and then bombs away - these pods are jettisoned to
unsuspecting
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Tags:
mobile phones,
off-topic,
Android
Posted Nov 9, 2009, by Colin
Walls
When
I first started programming, the only language available to me was
Fortran. I punched cards with my code and later received back a
print-out with [mostly] error messages. I was always intrigued by
being able to program a computer in such a straightforward way. I
understood what assembly language or even machine code was all
about, but felt that high level languages had a mystique. In due
course,
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Tags:
embedded software,
programming languages,
C
Posted Nov 2, 2009, by Colin
Walls
It
is increasingly common for embedded designs to be implemented using
multiple cores. At Mentor Graphics we are keen to support our
customers by providing software and services to help them with such
endeavors. We also espouse the idea of using multiple operating
systems in such designs. I recently presented a Web seminar on this
topic [a recording is available as an archive] and I have written a
few
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Tags:
embedded software,
Linux,
Android,
Nucleus,
multi-core,
multi-OS
Posted Oct 27, 2009, by
Colin Walls
There
is a good, albeit rather general, rule that applies to the
management of a successful business: focus on what you do well, then
do it better than everyone else. There are numerous examples of how
companies have been very successful by following this approach. But
the world of embedded software is commonly an exception
To start
with, I can cite some examples of good practice: Have you heard
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Tags:
networking,
RTOS,
embedded software
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