Category: Embedded Software

What type of products do we design
Product types we have designed A frequent question we get is “What types of products do we specialise in”? It doesn’t have a simple answer because the range is huge. The reality is that electronics design and the embedded software that runs inside those products intersects with every aspect of modern day life. It came…

Better Product Development Process
Made in Australia Electronics: How to compete This will be no surprise to anyone who has heard me speak on this topic. You can’t compete with low cost economies on raw transactional cost if they have access to the same components and production automation you do. And my design team can do an excellent job…

Product Development Case Study
Startup strategy This is a classic startup tale where a small team do incredibly good work to get an idea into a demonstrable form and then build a team who can complete the package. A Melbourne based business came to us with a mechanical prototype operated using three Arduino modules and hand wired actuators and…
Writing Better Code
What is Code? Those who write software refer to source code. This is human readable instructions for a computer to execute. Which either gets compiled to machine code in the instruction set the computer can execute, or is interpreted directly by a virtual machine. Java and Python are 2 languages that commonly use virtual machines. Whereas…
Good Documentation
Good Documentation Good Documentation makes it possible for other people to leverage work already done. It can be the difference between something being usable and it being scrapped or ignored. We have already looked at some aspects of how Software Documentation can be created. An example being shown below. This is only one form…
Software Development Metrics
Software Development Estimation in Software Costing we looked at some typical ways of determining the likely cost of a Software Development project. One way was to look at how much typing was involved. This is not considered the best approach as the cartoon below demonstrated. I prefer to spend more time thinking about the…
C Programming Use Continues
C Programming Language The C Programming Language was developed by Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson at Bell Laboratories between 1969 and and 1973. It was the successor to B and used to create Unix. The recent bad experience with the Multics time sharing operating system development had made Bell Laboratories sensitive to that sort of cost…
The State of Embedded Systems Safety
Embedded Systems Safety In The Internet of Insecure Things we got a glimpse into the source of some of those security issues. Today we benefit from another infographic reproduced courtesy of the Barr Group. This time it is a look at the underlying Software Security that is so important to improving the future and no making it even…
The Internet of Insecure Things
Insecurity in Cyberspace This is not one of those topics that makes you feel better initially. In IoT Security we looked at how the emerging IoT world needed to protect itself against attacks. This is a different problem to pure Software Security which has its own challenges. It was with recent interest that I…
Intellectual Property Policy
Intellectual Property Intellectual Property, or IP as it is abbreviated, is a very important topic. So what is Intellectual Property? The diagram above shows some examples. Here are some more examples of Intellectual Property that specifically apply to the Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development: Patents Copyright Industrial design rights Plant varieties Trademarks…
