Let’s now actually understand the need and usage of GDB, OpenOCD, JTAG, SWD, etc. Let’s go over some of the use-cases to see how all of them come together and form a coherent debugging environment for a typical embedded system.
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GDB, OpenOCD, JTAG, SWD etc are terms often thrown around when it comes to debugging in an embedded environment. They are naught but just tools made available to us. We will actually understand the core principles and ideas behind debugging such that the usage of such tools would become evident and obvious.
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ABI and Procedure call standard are backbone to safe-guard compatibility and inter-operability. Let’s see how and why.
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Interrupt handling is a very critical part of any architecture. For ARM64, they are looked at from a certain lense. Let’s see how.
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Syscalls and switching between different exception levels is a very intricate topic filled with minute details which are often overlooked. Let’s dive into details.
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If you’ve ever wondered how the tiny chips powering your smartphone or laptop come to life, you’re in for a treat.
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ARM-A is the most prevalent architecture out there powering billions of devices. We will be covering these topics over the course of multiple articles in this series.
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A System on Chip (SoC) is an integrated circuit that combines multiple components of a computer or electronic system into a single chip.
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A Power Management Integrated Circuit (PMIC) is a critical component in modern electronic devices, designed to manage power requirements efficiently. It takes input from a DC power supply or a battery, delivers regulated power to various system components, and often includes functionality to charge an onboard battery.
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Bootloaders are the unsung heroes of ARM Cortex-M-based systems, ensuring reliable startup, application execution, and firmware updates. By leveraging the Cortex-M’s vector table, VTOR, and low-power features, developers can create efficient and secure bootloaders tailored to their application’s needs.
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Most Linux device driver engineers cannot reason about how the Linux kernel boots or how a device driver is loaded. This post details how you should learn to write device drivers by being able to reason down to the hardware level.
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What does a humble device like a router do? To most, a router is used till it breaks like many other devices in the house. The router plays such an important role by making sure your netflix works smoothly. However, a solo glance at its shell will reveal a battle raged for OpenWRT, RDK, and prplOS.
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I am going to explain the anatomy of assembly code using RISC-V as an example since it’s a clean, modern instruction set architecture (ISA) that’s easy to understand. Assembly code is a low-level programming language that directly corresponds to machine instructions executed by a processor.
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Git and Gerrit are pivotal tools in the software development industry, each serving distinct yet complementary roles that enhance collaboration, code quality, and workflow efficiency.
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Pulse-Code Modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent analog signals, particularly audio. It works by sampling the amplitude of an analog signal at regular intervals and then quantizing those samples into a series of discrete numerical values. These values are stored or transmitted as binary data, making PCM a foundational technique for digital audio in computers, CDs, DVDs, and other media.
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In this article, I want to talk about the do{..}while(0) construct in C. This construct is often used in C programming to define multi-statement macros. It is a common pattern used in the Linux kernel and other standard C projects. I will take an example of a macro that is not safe and show how do{..}while(0) construct can be used to make it safe. Especially in the conditional statements.
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In the C programming language, the scope of an identifier determines where it can be accessed or referenced within a program. Understanding the different scopes in C is crucial for managing variable and function names effectively without causing conflicts.
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Efficient timer management is a crucial aspect of embedded systems, especially in applications requiring low-power operation, RTOS scheduling, or precise event timing. One of the most efficient ways to manage multiple software timers is the delta list approach, which significantly reduces CPU overhead and optimizes wake-up schedules.
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In the C programming language, a storage class defines the scope (visibility) and life-time of variables and/or functions within a program. There are four fundamental storage classes that can be used to define these properties: auto, register, static, and extern.
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In the C programming language, tokens are the smallest individual units of a program that the compiler recognizes and processes during lexical analysis, the first phase of compilation. The C compiler breaks down the source code into tokens before proceeding to syntax analysis and further stages. Tokens are the building blocks of a program, and understanding them is fundamental to grasping how C code is interpreted.
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