This is a short article explaining how to analyze part of the behavior of a power MOSFET during turn-on, and how it is influenced by the parasitic inductance at the source terminal. Parasitic inductance is not a good thing — the word parasite in biology refers to an external thing that feeds off a host organism; while ..read more

In 2017 and 2018 I wrote an eighteen-part series of articles about linear feedback shift registers, or LFSRs: div.jms-article-content ol > li { list-style-type: upper-roman } Ex-Pralite Monks and Finite Fields, in which we describe what an LFSR is as a digital circuit; its cyclic behavior over time; the definition of groups, rings, and fields; the isomorphism ..read more

Welcome to the 2024 Embedded Online Conference! Like with previous years, this year's event will be a mix of pre-recorded on-demand sessions and live Zoom sessions. We've carefully curated the schedule to ensure that you have access to a wealth of valuable content throughout the week. Most talks will be released on-demand, while most workshops and keynotes will be done live on Zoom ..read more

Today I am going to tell you a tale. It is a true story of events that happened long, long ago in a land far, far away. We are always told that we should learn from our experience [or from our mistakes - it depends whether you do "glass half full" or "glass half empty"]. Hopefully, there are less painful lessons to be learned from the experience of others. Once upon a time … There was a young ..read more

This third in a series of five articles exploring getting started with development on the Microchip PIC 8-bit family of processors focuses on basic GPIO (General Purpose Input Output). The initial post looked at some of the Microchip hardware options for getting started with the PIC 8-bit development, discussed Microchip development tools, and wrapped up with setting up a basic ..read more

With the Embedded Online Conference just around the corner, we are very excited to announce an opportunity for you to win one of many amazing prizes, thanks to the generous contributions of DigiKey, Jetperch and Saleae! For a chance to win one of the following prizes, all you have to do is help us with spreading the word about the ..read more

Previously in this EmbeddedRelated article, we saw how to use Buttons Subsystem on NuttX using a RaspberryPi Pico board. Now we will change from user input device (buttons) for something more generic: I2C protocol. NuttX supports a lot of I2C devices (sensors, displays, EEPROMs, I/O Expanders, I2C multiplexers, and many more). And most important: because NuttX is a Linux-like RTOS you ..read more

The Amiga 1000 computer had a little red light, right next to the power switch, but it wasn't just a power indicator. Whenever I – back then, a clueless 12-year-old – tried to run a pirated, cracked game from a worn-out 3.5" floppy, I kept a nervous eye on that light. If it started blinking, it meant that something's gone terribly wrong, the computer is restarting, and I won't be playing ..read more

At least, probably not as often as you think you do. Using a preemptive RTOS ("real-time operating system") can help make a system schedulable (i.e. help all of its tasks meet their deadlines) but it comes at a cost: "concurrently" running tasks can interact in unforeseen ways that cause system failures, that dreaded class of errors known as "race conditions". In part, this is because ..read more

I have often talked and written about my thoughts on programming languages. In particular, the fact that there really is no language that was designed with embedded programming specifically in mind. Historically, there was assembly language, but that is rarely used for large scale coding nowadays. Intel promoted PL/M many years ago, but that has long since fallen by the wayside. C and C++ are ..read more