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Questions tagged [embedded]

Embedded refers to embedded systems, which involves areas such as microcontroller/DSP firmware programming, real-time systems, electronic interfaces, hardware drivers, serial bus communication etc.

Embedded systems are computer systems which are an internal component of a product (that is, embedded within a product) for a specific, usually limited, purpose which includes control, reconfigurability, or translation. Examples include digital watches, smart thermostats, automotive engine supervision, firewalls, solar panel controllers, PC keyboards, digital billboards, digital cameras, GPS receivers, traffic signal control and MP3 players.

Embedded systems contain a processing core that is either a microprocessor, a or a digital signal processor .

The key characteristic is being dedicated to handle a particular task. Since the embedded system is dedicated to specific tasks, its design can be optimized to reduce the size and cost of the product and increase the reliability and performance. Some embedded systems are mass-produced, benefiting from economies of scale.

The complexity of an embedded system can be any point along several orders of magnitude: from a vehicle counter with 150 bytes of code to an iPad with a sophisticated operating system kernel which manages gigabytes of local information.

Two major aspects of embedded system design and implementation is to reduce power consumption and heat reduction.

Tag usage

Apart from the tag, also tag your question with a specific development platform, tool chain, and/or target platform. Relevant tags are the specific compiler, specific processor, specific evaluation boards etc. that are used. Avoid using manufacturer tags such as for example as they generally add nothing of value. Instead, specify the microcontroller being used, for example .

This tag is not for questions about embedding media into HTML pages (<embed>), the #embed preprocessor directive, embedding visual components in a GUI, or embedding programming languages, databases or other things into web/desktop programs.

Please note that Stack Overflow is a programming site, and therefore questions about embedded systems that are related both to software and hardware will likely get a better reception at Electronics.stackexchange.com, where embedded systems hardware questions always are on-topic. For example, if you have a problem which could either be caused by software or by hardware, it is better to ask it on the electronics site.

Other sites that may also give a better response to specific embedded system questions:

Books

Resources

  • Wikipedia overview: including history, manufacture, implementations, debugging, tools, UIs, and architectures.
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Reset a MicroSd card whilst in Spi mode without a power cycle

I have an existing embedded system with an existing developed C code. Sometimes the microSD card can lock down giving responses outside of the scope of the existing system. I'm currently unsure why but suspect the handler in the existing system…
Chris599
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What is the difference between BSP and distribution layers in Yocto

Can you please explain briefly what are BSP and distribution layers and what is the difference between them? Actually I'm not looking for Yocto project manual references but will be glad to get explanation as you understand it, in your words.
Munky munk
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UART receive interrupt stops triggering after several hours of successful receive

I am using STM32f4 discovery board connected with xbee to receive temperature data from remote temperature sensor. Code used is CMIS UART example code. I will receive packet data, 1 byte at a time. In other words UART receive interrupt will be…
user2819759
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Guidelines for designing forward compatible communication protocols?

I'm working on a communication protocol between embedded devices. The protocol will definitely need new commands and fields in the future. What do I need to do to make sure I'm not painting myself into a corner?
Ben Gartner
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Detect when USB device was disconnected using usbd_core.c

So working on an embedded system I have a USB drive that is used to charge the device as well as reading some data. Using usbd_core.c I can check the status, when there's nothing connected the status is 4 (USBD_STATE_SUSPENDED). As soon as I…
user4243768
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How to store text file on embedded systems flash memory and read from it

I'm trying to do the following: Storing a text file (7kB) in the flash memory of a STEVAL-MKI109V2 (running with freeRTOS) board and read this text file and doing some computation with it on the device itself. I have 2 problems regarding that: 1)…
Unfixable
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UART over USB for STM32 Micro-controller

I'm trying to implement UART over a USB interface on the STM324x9I-EVAL development board. The purpose is to send commands to a servo controller (or other hardware, for that matter) serially. I've successfully implemented the USB_Device_CDC example…
mban
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Gang scheduling in RTOS over a multicore processor

I understand that Gang scheduling is a scheduling algorithm for parallel systems that schedules related threads or processes to run simultaneously on different processors. Gang scheduling is used so that if two or more threads or processes…
Karthik Balaguru
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MouseUp event fired again several minutes after the button was pressed

.NET CF WinForms app runs on Windows CE5 and CE7 devices, with touchscreen. We hook up to MouseUp event rather than Click in our Button implementation (because of apparent problems with touchscreen sensitivity). We also hook up a Windows Message…
enkod
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Sublime Text as an external editor for IAR EWB

I've been using IAR EWB for ARM quite a some time now, despite its fiddly IDE features such as code completion and jump to definitions etc. Sometimes they work in IAR editor but most of the times no. GCC+Eclipse is not an option for me as I'm using…
SamR
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Linking with static library not equivalent to linking with its objects

Problem: The firmware image generated when linking with a static library is different to the firmware image generated when linking with the objects directly extracted from the static library. Both firmware images link without error and load…
Mike Hamer
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Footprint of Lua on a PPC Micro

We're developing some code on Freescale PPC micros (5517 and 5668 at the moment), and I was wondering if we could put Lua on them. The devices need to be easily programmed/reconfigured in the field, and the current product uses a proprietary…
Adam Shiemke
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Parsing an RFC822-Datetime in .NETMF 4.0

I have an application written in .NETMF that requires that I be able to parse an RFC822-Datetime. Normally, this would be easy, but NETMF does not have a DateTime.parse() method, nor does it have some sort of a pattern matching implementation, so…
chris12892
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Macros to set and clear bits

Im trying to write a few simple macros to simplify the task of setting and clearing bits which should be a simple task however I cant seem to get them to work correctly. #define SET_BIT(p,n) ((p) |= (1 << (n))) #define CLR_BIT(p,n) ((p) &= (~(1) <<…
volting
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How to calculate a RTOS task's time

I have written a code in c for Arm7 using RTOS. There are multiple tasks who's priority is set to same level. So the tasks executes on round-robin base. There is an exception that one task (Default) has set to lower priority then the other task in…
Adnan
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