Embedded PCB Design

Manage Embedded Software through Design Rules for a No-Line PCB Design

Manage Embedded Software through Software Architecture and Design Rules for a No-Line PCB Design Recently, Amazon opened its first grocery market where one of its main points was its refusal of lines. Of course, its first-day publicity was a line of people outside waiting to try it out. I’m sure that as the newness diminishes it will be able to fulfill its promise of no lines; however, for now, I am mostly hoping that the store still had some rules in place in-case there was a line. After all, if one of your basic premises is to avoid lines Read Article

Searching for Clarity: Signal Integrity Issues in PCB Design

Searching for Clarity of Signal by Addressing Integrity Issues in PCB Design The clarity of TV signal transmission these days is amazing. I can still remember the days when I had a set of rabbit ears perched atop my 19” RCA. It was a challenge to position them just right to get the clearest picture, not to mention having to adjust them for every channel. Sometimes it’d take all night just to find the channel I wanted, so I’d sit down for five minutes and then head to bed. And if the weather was bad, forget about it. While Read Article

Hide and Seek: Key Serial-Number Chips for PIC Microcontroller Code Protection

Hide and Seek: Key Serial-Number Chips for PIC Microcontroller Code Protection One of my favorite games, when I was young, was hide and seek. I would play with my friends and it was always fun to try and find a good hiding place. As an older brother, I played the same game with my younger brothers, but with a twist. Instead of hiding myself, I had to hide my stuff from them. If I picked good hiding places, my stuff was safe. However, if I was lackadaisical and chose poor hiding places they were sure to find my toys or Read Article

IoT Security Vulnerabilities and Buffer Overflow

Internet of Things Security Vulnerabilities: It's All About That Buffer Overflow I follow a bunch of animal and nature publications, and recently the phrase ‘zombie ants,’ kept popping up in my feed. I decided to do a little digging and discovered that there’s a type of fungi - Ophiocordyceps - whose life cycle involves infecting ants that walk across its spores with fungal cells that infiltrate the ant’s central nervous system and essentially take over the ant. Once they have the ant "under its control", the fungus-infected Read Article

Give Them No Quarter: Preventing PIC Microcontroller Code from Being Duplicated

Give Them No Quarter: Code Protection in PIC Microcontrollers for Duplication Prevention Copying, from all understandings, seems like a disingenuous and sub-par strategy for any solution you need; from taking a test in school, to catching up with your friends, it is rare to find a moment where you would be rewarded for simply copying a message or answer. Imitating, on the other hand, is an encouraged practice in most professional industries - follow the guidelines and roadwork laid out before you so as to avoid the tedious work of Read Article

Untangle Yourself with an SD Card Bootloader

Untangle Yourself with an SD Card Bootloader Like Ray LaMontagne, I’ve got trouble. Smartphone trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble. I can figure out the apps I want, and I’ve got the games I need (wait, I might have those priorities backward), but transferring all my images and data is a bit more of a pain. There always seems to be music that gets left behind or images that, for whatever reason, refuse to back up. I consider myself pretty savvy, but when I got a new smartphone I was starting Read Article

Security by Design: Internet of Things Authentification and Self Testing

Security by Design: Internet of Things Authentification and Self Testing Have you noticed how many organizations are getting hacked lately? Businesses like Equifax aren’t the only targets of these attacks; government institutions like the NSA have also been hit. Even the Internet of Things (IoT) has been targeted. Hackers infect and control devices in order to use them as a tool for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults. I’m sure you’ve gotten your credit card hacked, as well; I have. The difficult part about Read Article

Designing a User Database for Card Access Systems

Designing a User Database for Card Access Systems How long does it usually take for you to unpack your clothes and organize them after you move? If you’re anything like me, they might slowly move from your suitcases and boxes to a dresser over a healthy span of weeks. In the interim, I have to develop an internal logic of where, in all the clutter, certain clothes are located: dress shirts in the box at the foot of the bed, socks and underwear tucked in front of the dresser. Even my logic fails Read Article

Internet of Things Security Issues Prompt Government Intervention

Internet of Things Security Issues Prompt Government Intervention When you look at an Internet of Things (IoT) device like a fork or a juicer, what do you see? Like me, you probably see a gadget that was designed for a particular purpose. Less upstanding citizens may see a digital weapon instead of an innocuous gizmo. In the past several years, there have been several high-profile distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that were enabled by poorly-secured IoT devices. Hackers infiltrate light bulbs and Read Article

Internet of Things Security Best Practices: Passwords, Patches, and Portals

IoT Security Best Practices: Passwords, Patches, and Portals If you’ve ever created devices for military applications you’re probably used to designing with security in mind. If you’re more like me and just build the odd Internet of Things (IoT) doodad, that’s probably the last thing on your mind. However, recent cyber attacks are highlighting why engineers like us should be a little more concerned with security. These design best practices will show you how you can safeguard your systems. Why Secure the Read Article

How to Use a Random Number Generator to Create Uncertainty in PCB Design

How to Use a Random Number Generator to Create Uncertainty in PCB Design My high school peers knew me as a predictable person—always the first one to show up anywhere—on time, every time. Since they didn’t seem as concerned with keeping their schedules and promises, sometimes I waited hours for my friends. That uncertainty would mess up my schedule, but engineering was a place where I found uncertainty was rarely a problem. Unsurprisingly, I developed a deep interest in physics and engineering, where the results are Read Article

PCB Technology Trends: The Benefits of Internet of Things Security Gateways

PCB Technology Trends: The Benefits of Internet of Things Security Gateways Do you ever like to take a break from social situations for a few days and spend some quality time with your television? I do that maybe a little more often than I should, and last week I spent that time binge-watching the new season of Stranger Things. If you haven’t seen the show, it’s about a girl with psychic powers who opens a portal to another dimension (the Upside Down) filled with creatures. The gateway to that world lets monsters loose Read Article

Essential PCB Design Tips: How to Implement a Watchdog Timer in Your PCB Design

Essential PCB Design Tips: How to Implement a Watchdog Timer in Your PCB Design When you work from home there are some perks of the job. You can make your own meals, slot in some laundry over lunch, and drink all the tea you want. I use a stove-top kettle to boil water for my tea, so when I get in the writing zone, I rely on its high-pitched whistle to tell me when it’s done. Sometimes when I’m careless, I don’t fit the lid on properly. As a result, the kettle remains silent despite the fact that the liquid water inside of Read Article

PCB Design Tips: Should You Include an External Watchdog Timer (WDT) in Your Board Design

PCB Design Tips: Should You Include an External or Internal Watchdog Timer (WDT) in Your Board Design Would you invest in an external mouse, keyboard, and a high-definition monitor when your laptop comes equipped with these features? It’s a personal choice, especially when you want to turn your laptop into a portable workstation. My girlfriend, who’s starting her career as a professional accountant, dismissed my choice as a waste of money. In electronics, deciding whether to include an external watchdog timer (WDT) in your PCB design can be an Read Article

Important Considerations in Your Embedded System's Master-Slave Communication Model

Important Considerations in Your Embedded System's Master-Slave Communication Model It can take a few weeks or months to finish a working prototype of an embedded system. Sometimes I would spend days working on a single part of the project. However, when your boss is looking for updates every day, it can be particularly distracting and hinder your productivity. When I started my design company, I learned not to repeat these mistakes on my team. Like a human, embedded systems come in various shapes and sizes, and more importantly Read Article

Why You Should Incorporate Digital Input Sampling for Embedded Systems

Why You Should Incorporate Digital Input Sampling in Your Embedded System I particularly enjoy shopping in the supermarket on the weekend. In the grocery section, there are samples of various food products that range from tuna spread to white coffee. While I enjoy hopping from one sample station to another, my 5 year old son shamelessly always asks for a second helping. Sampling in electronics carries a different meaning than leisurely eating a variety of snacks. In an embedded system, digital input signals play an Read Article

How To Design Internet Of Things Devices: Make Them Simple and Universal

How To Design Internet Of Things Devices: Make Them Simple and Universal Greed is a natural human tendency that promises much but often leaves us with nothing. My father grew up in a gold rich area of Africa. A miner once told my father and his friends that they could keep as much of his gold as they could carry by hand for 5 miles. My father and his friends each took their turns, but all of them tried to carry too much and couldn’t even make it one mile. The temptation to attempt too much, or keep too much to oneself Read Article