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Learn Embedded Systems

Introduction

This document is a collection of resources for learning embedded systems engineering.

[ ] Article: "Introduction", Barr Group

[ ] Video: "Embedded Systems Overview", YouTube

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Table of Contents

• Development Environment

  • Cross Compilation
  • Development Tools

• Embedded Hardware

  • Computer Architecture

    • RISC
    • ARM
    • Endianness

  • Embedded Platforms

    • Microcontroller
    • System on a Chip (SoC)
    • Single Board Computer
    • FPGA

  • Serial Communication

    • SPI
    • I2C
    • UART
    • RS232
    • RS485

  • GPIO

    • Pin Modes
      • Pull Up/Down
      • Push-Pull
      • Open-Drain
    • Direction
      • Input
      • Output

  • Analog Input

    • ADC

  • Analog Output

    • PWM
    • DAC

  • Timer

  • Constraints

    • Power
    • Memory
      • Program (ROM)
      • Dynamic (RAM)

• Embedded Operating Systems

  • Bare Metal
  • GNU/Linux
  • Real Time Operating Systems

• Embedded Software

  • C Keywords
    • volatile
    • static
    • const
    • pragma
    • attribute
    • restrict
    • inline
  • Watchdog Timer
  • Memory Alignment
  • Pointers
  • Bit Manipulation
    • Bitwise
    • Arithmetic
  • Interrupts
  • Optimizations
  • Coding Standards
    • MISRA
    • ISO/IEC 90003

• Embedded Software Layers

  • Peripheral and Hardware Layer

    • Registers
    • Bit Fields
    • Memory Map
    • Peripherals

  • Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)

    • Register Definition Files
    • Memory Access Methods
    • Board Support Package (BSP)

  • Application Layer

    • Data Structures and Algorithms

      • Queue
        • Circular Buffer
        • Semaphore
        • Event Handling
        • Producer-Consumer

    • Domain Knowledge

      • Digital Signal Processing
        • FFT
        • Filters
          • IIR
          • FIR
      • Control Systems
        • PID
        • Solar
      • Cryptography and Encryption

• Debugging

  • Static Analysis
  • Dynamic Analysis
  • Logic Analyzer
  • Oscilliscope
  • Wireshark
  • JTAG
  • SWD

• Testing and Quality Management

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Development Environment

Cross Compilation

• Article: "Compiling, Linking, and Locating", Barr Group

Development Tools

• IDE

  • PlatformIO
  • Visual Studio Code
  • VisualGDB

• Oscilliscopes and Logic Analyzers

  • Video: "Setting Up the Analog Discovery 2 Portable Lab Instrument", YouTube

Embedded Hardware

[ ] Article: "Getting to Know the Hardware", Barr Group

[ ] Video: "Computer Hardware", YouTube

[ ] Video: "MSP430 Hardware Overview", YouTube

Computer Architecture

[ ] Video: "Architecture-Software Interface", Coursera

[ ] Video: "Word Size and Data Types", Coursera

• RISC

  • Website: "RISC-V Educational Materials", RISC-V

• ARM

  • Video: "ARM University, ARM Architecture Fundamentals", YouTube

  • Video: "Get to Know the ARM Cortex M7", YouTube

• Endianness

  • Article: "Big Endian, Little Endian, Endianness: Understanding Byte Arrangements in Digital Systems", All About Circuits

  • Video: "Endianness", Coursera

Embedded Platforms

• Microcontroller

  • PDF: "Introduction to Microcontrollers", Gunther Gridling, Bettina Weiss

• System on a Chip

  • Video: "Arm Education Media Launches System-on-Chip Design Online Courses", YouTube

• Single Board Computer

  • Article: "Single-board computer", Wikipedia

• FPGA

  • Article: "How FPGAs work, and why you'll buy one", Embedded Related
  • Video: "A Look Inside: SoC FPGAs Introduction (Part 1 of 5)", YouTube

Serial Communication

[ ] Video: "PROTOCOLS: UART - I2C - SPI - Serial communications #001", YouTube

• SPI

  [ ] SPI on the MSP430

  • Video: "SPI - SPI Overview & Implementation on the MSP430", YouTube

  • Video: "SPI - Sending a Byte as a SPI Master", YouTube

  • Video: "SPI - Sending a Packet as a SPI Master using UCTXIFG", YouTube

  • Video: "SPI - Sending a Packet as a SPI Master using STE/SS", YouTube

  • Video: "SPI - Receiving a Byte as a SPI Master", YouTube

  • Video: "SPI - Slave Behavior", YouTube

• I2C

  [ ] I2C on the MSP430

  • Video: "I2C - What is I-Squared C and why the Resistors?", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Basic Packet Structure", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Addressing Slave Registers", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Master Configuration on the MSP430FR2355", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Adafruit PFC8523 Real-Time-Clock I2C Slave", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - RTC-LaunchPad Connection & Making a Simple Probe", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Writing One Byte to an I2C Slave", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Writing a Register Addr + 3 Bytes to I2C Slave", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Reading One Byte from an I2C Slave", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Reading From a Specific Register Address", YouTube

  • Video: "I2C - Slave Operation", YouTube

• UART

  [ ] UART on the MSP430

  • Video: "The UART - Serial Com Overview", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - The UART Standard", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Configuring the UART Tx", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Configuring the Baud Rate", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Transmitting a Byte at 115200 Baud", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Transmitting a Byte at 9600 Baud", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Transmitting a Character to the Terminal", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Transmitting a String to the Terminal", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Transmitting String to the Terminal w/ IRQs", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Configuring the UART Rx", YouTube

  • Video: "UART - Receiving Characters from the Terminal", YouTube

• RS232

  • Video: "What is RS232 and What is it Used for?", YouTube

  • Video: "RS-232, RS-422, RS-485: What Are the Differences?", YouTube

• RS485

  • Video, "RS-485 Circuit Implementation", YouTube

  • Video, "What is RS485 and How it's used in Industrial Control Systems?", YouTube

GPIO

[ ] Video: "How GPIO works | General Purpose Input Output | GPIO Behind The Scene", YouTube

[ ] Article: "Introduction to Microcontrollers - Hello World", Embedded Related

[ ] Article: "Introduction to Microcontrollers - More On GPIO", Embedded Related

[ ] Video: "Using GPIO with the MSP430 Microcontroller", YouTube

• Pin Modes

  • Pull Up/Down

    [ ] Article: "Using Pull-Up and Pull-Down Resistors", Stratify Labs

  • Push-Pull

    [ ] Video: "GPIO Output Configuration | Open Drain configuration | Push Pull configuration", YouTube

  • Open-Drain

    [ ] Video: "GPIO Output Mode: Working of Open Drain Configuration", YouTube

• Direction

  • Input

    [ ] Video: "MSP430 - Digital Inputs & Polling", YouTube

  • Output

    [ ] Video: "MSP430 - Digital Outputs", YouTube

Analog Input

• ADC

  [ ] Analog-to-Digital Converter on the MSP430

  • Video: "Overview of ADCs", YouTube

  • Video: "The MSP430 ADC & Configuration", YouTube

  • Video: "Reading Voltage w/ Conversion-Complete Polling", YouTube

  • Video: "Reading Voltage w/ Conversion-Complete IRQ", YouTube

  • Video: "Reading Voltage w Conversion-Complete IRQ & LPM", YouTube

Analog Output

• PWM

  [ ] Video: "MSP430 - Creating PWM Signals using Timer Compares", YouTube

• DAC

  [ ] Article: "About Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) and Its Applications", ElProCus

Timer

[ ] Article: "Introduction to Microcontrollers - More Timers and Displays", Embedded Related

• [ ] MSP430 Timer

  • Video: "Timer Overflow using ACLK", YouTube
  • Video: "Timer Overflow using ACLK + 12-Bit Counter Length", YouTube
  • Video: "Timer Overflow using SMCLK", YouTube
  • Video: "Timer Overflow using SMCLK + Divide-by-4 PreScalar", YouTube
  • Video: "Timer Compares", YouTube
  • Video: "Timer Captures", YouTube

Constraints

[ ] Video: "Optimizing C for Microcontrollers - Best Practices - Khem Raj, Comcast RDK", YouTube

• Power

  [ ] Video: "How To Lower AVR Microcontroller Power using Power Reduction Registers", YouTube

  [ ] Video: "Atmel: picoPower Labs - Basic Power-Saving Techniques", YouTube

  [ ] Video: "Microcontroller Design Considerations for Ultra Low Power Applications", YouTube

  [ ] Video: "Ultra Low Power Microcontroller Design", YouTube

• Memory

  [ ] Article: "Memory", Barr Group

  [ ] Video: "Interacting with Memory", Coursera

  [ ] Video: "Different Types of Memory in Microcontroller : Flash Memory, SRAM and EEPROM", YouTube

  • Program (ROM)

  • Dynamic (RAM)

    • Video: "Tech Talk: Pros and Cons of Dynamic Memory Allocation", YouTube

    • Article: "How to make a heap profiler", Embedded Related

Embedded Operating Systems

[ ] Article: "Operating Systems", Barr Group

• Bare Metal

  • eBook: "Bare-metal C programming on ARM", GitHub

  • eBook: "Practical Guide to Bare Metal C++", GitBook

• GNU/Linux

• Real Time Operating Systems

  • Blog: "RTOS", Barr Group

Embedded Software

[ ] Video: "Computer Software", YouTube

[ ] Video: "MSP430 Software Overview", YouTube

[ ] Important Programming Concepts (Even on Embedded Systems)

• [] Article: "Part I: Idempotence", Embedded Related

• [] Article: "Part II: Immutability", Embedded Related

• [] Article: "Part III: Volatility", Embedded Related

• [] Article: "Part IV: Singletons", Embedded Related

• [] Article: "Part V: State Machines", Embedded Related

• [] Article: "Part VI : Abstraction", Embedded Related

C Keywords

[ ] Article: "Keywords to Frequent", Barr Group

[ ] Article: "Efficient C Code for 8-bit Microcontrollers", Barr Group

• volatile

  • Video: "Tech Talk: Pro Tips for Using C’s Volatile Keyword", YouTube

• static

  • Article: "Scope regions in C and C++", Embedded

• const

• pragma

  • Article: "Pragmas", GCC GNU

• attribute

  • Video: "Compiler Attributes", Coursera
  • Article: "Using GNU C attribute", unixwiz

• restrict

• inline

  • Article: "Inline Functions In C", greenend

Watchdog Timer

• Article: "Introduction to Watchdog Timers", Embedded

Memory Alignment

• Video: "Memory Alignment", Coursera

Pointers

• Video: "Pointers", Coursera

Bit Manipulation

• Bitwise

  • Video: "Switching to C to Program the MSP430 - Bitwise Logic Operations", YouTube

• Arithmetic

  • Video: "Switching to C to Program the MSP430 - Arithmetic", YouTube

Interrupts

[ ] Article: "Introduction to Microcontrollers - Interrupts", Embedded Related

• [ ] MSP430 Interrupts

  • Video: "Overview and Basic Concepts", YouTube

  • Video: "Interrupts Overview & Port Interrupt Example", YouTube

  • Video: "Overview of the Interrupt Vector Table", YouTube

  • Video: "The use of the STACK during an IRQ + Nested IRQs", YouTube

  • Video: "The Responsibility of the Developer when using IRQs", YouTube

  • Video: "The IRQs on the MSP430FR2355 MCU", YouTube

  • Video: "Port Interrupts on the MSP430FR2355 MCU - Overview", YouTube

  • Video: "Reading from a Switch Using a Port IRQ Program Example", YouTube

  • Video: "Changing Edge Sensitivity (PxIES) & Forgetting to Clear a Flag", YouTube

Optimizations

• Article: "Optimizing Your Code", Barr Group

Coding Standards

[ ] Article: "Embedded C Coding Standards", Barr Group

[ ] Video: "Tech Talk: Are Coding Standards & Static Analysis Really That Important?", YouTube

Blog: "Coding Standards", Barr Group

• MISRA

  • Video: "An Introduction to MISRA C - Excerpt from An Introduction to MISRA C:2012 Webinar", YouTube

• ISO/IEC 90003

  • Article: "ISO/IEC/IEEE 90003:2018 Software engineering — Guidelines for the application of ISO 9001:2015 to computer software", ISO

Embedded Software Layers

Peripheral and Hardware Layer

[ ] Article: "Peripherals", Barr Group

• Registers

  • Video: "Level Up Your Arduino Code: Registers", YouTube

• Bit Fields

  • Video: "Bit Fields in C. What are they, and how do I use them?", YouTube

• Memory Map

  • Video: "Memory Map and Registers", Coursera

• Peripherals

  • Video: "Exploring Configurable Logic Peripherals on PIC® and AVR® Microcontrollers", YouTube

Hardware Abstraction Layer

[ ] Video: "The Nios® II Processor: Hardware Abstraction Layer", YouTube

Textbook: "Reusable Firmware Development: A Practical Approach to APIs, HALs and Drivers", Amazon

• Register Definition Files

  [ ] Video: "Register Definition Files", Coursera

• Memory Access Methods

• Board Support Package

  [ ] Video: "0x1b7 What is a BSP | Board Support Package | Big Picture | Embedded Systems Software Development", YouTube

Application Layer

• Data Structures and Algorithms

  • Queue

    • Circular Buffer

      • Video: "Circular Buffer | Circular Buffer Implementation in C", YouTube

    • Semaphore

      • Video: "Semaphores", YouTube

      • Video: "Webinar: Mutexes & Semaphores Demystified", YouTube

    • Event Handling

      • Video: "Embedded Programming Lesson 33: Event-Driven Programming part-1", YouTube

      • Video: "Embedded Programming Lesson 34: Event-Driven Programming part-2", YouTube

    • Producer-Consumer

      • Video: "Producer Consumer Pattern", YouTube

      • Video: "Quick explanation: the Bounded-Buffer problem", YouTube

• Domain Knowledge

  • Digital Signal Processing

    [ ] Video: "Learn Embedded Systems Design on ARM based Microcontrollers 1 of 2", YouTube

    [ ] Video: "Learn DSP on ARM based Microcontrollers 2 of 2", YouTube

    • FFT

      • Video: "Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Tutorial - DSP with the Fast Fourier Transform Algorithm", YouTube

    • Filters

      • IIR

        • Video: "IIR Filters - Audio DSP On STM32 with I2S (24 Bit / 96 kHz)", YouTube

      • FIR

        • Video: "FIR Filters - Audio DSP On STM32 (24 Bit / 48 kHz)", YouTube

  • Control Systems

    • PID

      [ ] Understanding PID Control

      • Video: "Part 1: What is PID Control?", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 2: Expanding Beyond a Simple Integral", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 3: Expanding Beyond a Simple Derivative", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 4: A PID Tuning Guide", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 5: Three Ways to Build a Model", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 6: Manual and Automatic Tuning Methods", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 7: Important PID Concepts", YouTube

      [ ] Drone Simulation and Control

      • Video: "Part 1: Setting Up the Control Problem", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 2: How Do You Get a Drone to Hover?", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 3: How to Build the Flight Code", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 4: How to Build a Model for Simulation", YouTube
      • Video: "Part 5: Tuning the PID controller", YouTube

    • Solar

      • Video: "How to implement maximum power point tracking for solar charging", YouTube

  • Cryptography and Encryption

Debugging

[ ] Article: "Downloading and Debugging", Barr Group

Blog: "Debugging", Barr Group

Static Analysis

• Video: "Static Code Analysis: Scan All Your Code For Bugs", YouTube

• Video: "Using PC-Lint for MISRA and static code analysis", YouTube

Dynamic Analysis

Logic Analyzer

• Video: "EEVblog #44 Part 1 - Logic Analyzer Tutorial", YouTube

• Video: "EEVblog #44 - Part 2 - Logic Analyzer Tutorial", YouTube

Oscilliscope

• Video: "How to Debug Embedded Designs with an Oscilloscope", YouTube

• Video: "How to test Automotive Serial Buses with Oscilloscopes", YouTube

JTAG

• Video: "", YouTube

SWD

• Video: "", YouTube

Testing and Quality Management

Phil Koopman Lectures

• Playlist: "Embedded Software Testing", YouTube

• Playlist: "Embedded Security, Safety, and Software Quality", YouTube