Embedded Software

Browse our library of resources to learn more about embedded software for pcb design.

Embedded RF Design: Ceramic Chip Antennas vs. PCB Trace Antennas Over the years, there’s been a large rise in café culture which has left many of the newer cafés looking for ways of adding a creative interest to their store. Café and bookstore hybrids, gourmet coffee with baristas that have an expertise over regional coffee beans, and even cat cafés have all been twists I’ve seen pop-up. When it comes down to it, people are going to cafés for a few key reasons though: to get a drink or snack, to meet and talk Read Article

Huge Vu-meter with RGB LEDs Project A laboratory journal to guide you through the steps to develop a successful product that value-conscious customers are sure to love. Read Article

Getting Through Agile Prototyping in Agile Hardware Development If you’ve worked in software development, such as in web design or enterprise software design, you know how difficult it can be to get clients to understand the look and feel of a product from a static wireframe. We’ve had the same problem in recent projects, especially when the POC was not a technical person. The client ultimately had to take it on faith that we knew what we were doing and could deliver what we promised. There’s no substitute Read Article

Hardware-in-the-Loop Testing: An Introduction If you do a search for “Hardware-in-the-Loop” testing, you will frequently find examples of complex, real-time systems. This article from National Instruments, for example, gives a nice explanation and background on what hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) is, and provides an example of testing electronic control units within an automobile. In this article, we will be focusing on a smaller, more bite-sized version of HIL testing concepts. What is Hardware Read Article

PCB Debugging: Tips, Tools, and Tricks There are some basic PCB debugging steps you should take when your new prototype has some signal integrity problems. Read Article

Enterprise IoT Challenges for PCB Designers in 2020 Enterprise IoT became one of the biggest tech buzzwords in 2019, with many analysts promising improvements in business efficiencies and profits simply by connecting everything in the office. As time goes on, real problems that can be solved by connecting business assets start to become clear, and practical opportunities for innovation and problem solving can be identified. I would argue we’re starting to move away from the 1990s-equivalent age of Read Article

Leading a Team for Embedded Electronics Putting together a team, and the infrastructure to support embedded electronics design, requires an understanding of how every part works and how they interact. In this article I want to talk about how to build that team and provide some insight on how to build the infrastructure necessary for your product development. Definition: What are the different parts Designing an embedded electronic product requires pieces from different facets of Read Article

Continuous Deployment: An Implementation Using Altium Designer In Continuous Integration and Deployment in ECAD we discussed the concept of Continuous Deployment within a build system. In this article, we will take a deeper look at how to set up continuous delivery and deployment systems so your team and vendors can enjoy a continuous stream of updated ECAD packages for review. Continuous Deployment/Delivery: Revisited In Continuous Integration: An Implementation Using Altium Designer we went through the Read Article

Agile Development for Embedded Systems: The Best of Both Worlds You might want to use agile development to build this embedded system As unique hardware platforms that provide computing power in a variety of applications, embedded systems combine the best of every techie’s dreams: hardware design and software development. Design processes for simpler embedded systems tend to be linear, and the hardware and embedded software may even be developed in parallel by different design teams. As systems become more Read Article

Continuous Integration: An Implementation Using Altium Designer In a previous article, Continuous Integration and Deployment in ECAD, we discussed the concept of Continuous Integration while testing within a build system (leveraging Git). In this article, we will take a deeper look at how to set this up and run these “tests” against one’s PCB design project. Continuous Integration Tests: Revisited In Software Engineering, the purpose of implementing Continuous Integration into a workflow is to prevent one’s Read Article

Continuous Integration and Deployment in ECAD Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment have become widely adopted practices within the software world. The concept of Continuous Integration and Deployment don’t need to be limited to just software - they can be extended into the ECAD world as well. In this article we will address both concepts and how they can be leveraged in ECAD tools. Continuous Deployment Designers will frequently make changes to their code and check it into the Read Article

Implications of Embedded Software Everywhere The amount of smart, connected products is increasing faster than ever. It was only very recently that IoT technology jumped from our phones and computers to our refrigerators, our lighting systems, and our vacuum cleaners. It's starting to seem like nothing is excluded from this extensive digital overhaul. In 2016, the smart home market was worth about $24 billion. By 2022, it's expected to reach $53 billion. Smart homes and robots are no longer Read Article

Datasheet Reliability with Ben Jordan When are datasheets accurate and can we rely on them? Ben Jordan is back on the show to discuss datasheets and how to achieve reliability for your use case. We also cover an unusual question from the forum about gilding that you won’t want to miss. Ben always enjoys catching up with the Lounge Forum, and this week, one of our users, Tim Philips, posted a datasheet that he had come across for an inductor. Listen in to explore these topics in this Read Article

Flattening Your Workflow: A Guide to “Flat” Style Project Management As flat organizations become more popular so do the methods and processes that come along with them. This blog discusses not the flat organizational structure itself but how a flat organization functions within the project management arena. The principles of project management learned from a flat organization can be adopted in the flattest companies to the most hierarchically structured organizations. Being “flat” is hip but why should I do it Read Article

Design Tips for High Frequency PCBs and Embedded Systems Like a game of telephone, information contained in an analog signal can be easily distorted on the way to its destination. If not designed properly, noise and distortion can accumulate throughout your signal change, making it difficult for your message to stand out above the noise. With the high frequencies used in wireless devices and other devices that interface with analog equipment, including embedded systems, there is plenty of opportunity Read Article

What You Need to Know About Choosing Embedded Modems for IoT IoT enables you to control devices over the internet. If you grew up in an era where the Internet existed without Google, you may be as amazed as I am to see how far technology has evolved. It would have been beyond my wildest imagination to think about machines conversing intelligently on the Internet without much human intervention. Back when I was introduced to the online world, it took several minutes to simply load a single page of sports Read Article

Layout Guidelines for Embedded Power Supplies I don’t get out to raucous parties as much as did in my 20’s. The thought of yelling over other people just to have a conversation is about as enticing as getting a tooth pulled. Crosstalk doesn’t just kill the mood at a party, it can ruin the functionality of electronic systems. Most PCB designers worry more about crosstalk between signals traces, but your power supply and power components can have an even greater impact. Thankfully, some simple Read Article