The document discusses the field of embedded systems, including various hardware and software components, programming environments, and application areas such as IoT and automation. It highlights the importance of debugging and quality assurance in embedded development, providing various tools and methodologies. The author, Volodymyr Shymanskyy, emphasizes the unique challenges of developing embedded systems as opposed to general-purpose applications.

1. Embedded
What? Why? How?
Volodymyr Shymanskyy
June 2015
You can find animated version here: http://tiny.cc/emb-wtf

2. Embedder

3. Integrated
Low Level
System Dev
Platform Dev
Firmware
Embedded
RTOS, RISC
uC, µC, MCU, SoC
Microcontrollers
FPGA, DSP, ASIC
JTAG
STM32, Cortex, ARM, AVR, PIC, MIPS,
PowerPC, SPARC, Arduino, Xilinx
VxWorks
Linux
Driver
Kernel
Ring-0

4. WHY?

5. Embedded
CLI
User Interface
Electronics
Connectivity
Mechanics
Management
Software
Radio
...

6. Embedded
Integrated
Low Power
Small Size
Low Cost
Durable
… or Beautiful

8. Roshen
Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eH2lVVFato

9. Applications
Automation (industrial, home...), IOT
Mobile, Modems, VOIP
Telecom, Network, Broadband
Automotive
Equipment
(medical, military, consumer, cooking…)

10. Embedded ≠ Mobile

11. Blynk 493% funded on Kickstarter!

12. Operating environment
becomes application-specific
(contrary to general-purpose)

13. CLI
User Interface
Electronics Connectivity
Mechanics
Management
Software
Radio
...

14. Frameworks
Even C++ features are turned off! ^_^
But there are some:
Linux, mbed, QP…
Libraries ARE used. LibEvent, minizip, etc...

15. C, C++, Java, … ?
User Apps Mobile Web Text proc. Prototyping
Basic / Pascal Forget it ;)
C/C++
Java, .Net
Python WOW!!!
Perl WOW!!!
JS, Node.JS WOW!!!
awk, sed WOW!!!
Bash / Cmd Just system scripting

16. Library
Processor(s) Memory Devices
Kernel
Drivers
Supervisor
Application
Hardware
Library Lib
Library L
Program
Program
Program
Program
System Software
Framework

17. Platforms

18. CISC vs RISC vs MISC vs ZISC
● Complex
● Reduced
● Minimal
● Zero!

19. x86 GPU DSP FPGA uC
Embed
Power
Float arithm
Integer arithm
Flow control
IO
Pipelining
Timing
Programming
From FPGA 101
Platform types

20. Tools

21. LAB

22. Tools
Debugging
Emulators, Traces,
Statistics, Diagnostic....
Hardware
Monitors, Scopes, Sniffers....
Quality Assurance is also more interesting!

23. Debuggers
Conditional breakpoints
Data breakpoints
Watch expressions
Reverse, Rec-Replay
Remote debugging
Offline debugging
Debugging in emulator!
Data Display Debugger

24. Profilers

25. Profilers
● speed, resource usage, cache
Perl perl -d:NYTProf myscript.pl
Python python -m cProfile myscript.py
+pycallgraph
Java NetBeans, GC Viewer, here (rus)
You can do measurements directly in code!

26. Valgrind
memcheck
cachegrind
callgrind
massif
helgrind
tutorial (rus)

27. fun
sysstat (sar)
iostat
pidstat
mpstat
etherape, vnstat
powertop
socat, netem, strace, ltrace

28. Emulators
VirtualBox
QEMU
...

29. Protocol Sniffers / Analysers
Wireshark
Fiddler
Hardware
USB

30. Prototyping
● Python, JS, Node.js
● Arduino
● Online:
○ Coding Ground
○ JSFiddle

32. Logs, Dumps, Event Traces
● “Debug by prints”
○ Embedded / multithreaded
● Log to file, to ram (may be shared)
○ Filter by module/severity
● Dump part of the state
○ Stats
● Event Traces
○ Binary, lightweight

33. Statistics
● Event counts
○ In domain, or internal
○ Amount of function calls
● Time of processing
● Latency
● CPU/RAM usage

34. CLI - Command Line
● Interactive
● One-shot
Increases usability &
Allows automation!

35. Support
Old long-term projects (10-15 years!!!)
And so are developers and their habits
[sometimes]

36. Requirements
C/C++
OOP/OOD
Multithreading, Synchronization, RPC, IPC
Linux/Unix
Embedded/Low Level
Network stack, OSI model
POSIX, STL

37. Other Requirements
Complex systems design
Debugging on customer side
Logical thinking
English

38. Benefits?

40. RC Car ->
Robot

41. 3D Printers

42. Volodymyr Shymanskyy
Embedded Software Developer & Trainer
Hackerspace Co-Founder & Coordinator
vshymanskyi@gmail.com
skype: vshymanskyi
LinkedIn, Facebook
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