You might know that gold is a noble metal, whose electron shells are completely filled and unlikely to be attracted to other elements. You might know that old contacts provoke less signal noise than other metals, but did you know that contacting tin with gold will corrode the gold over time? Mixing tin contacts with […]
How to accurately measure header/connector pitch
Sometimes when you’re working with a microcontroller unit evaluation board, you need to connect a ribbon cable to the board’s header. If the ribbon cable isn’t specified, how do you know what to order that will fit the header on the MCU board? The pitch of a connector refers to the distance between the pins […]
Difference between fixed and floating point
Various types of processors (DSPs, MCUs, etc.) have the ability to do math using floating point numbers, but what exactly does this mean? In general, floating point math offers a wider range of numbers and more precision than fixed point math. Knowing the difference, and when to use which type of math can make a […]
Memory technology from Floating Gates to FRAM
There are two basic types of memory: volatile and non-volatile. Volatile memory loses its content and becomes a blank slate whenever power is completely removed. However, volatile memory doesn’t need much power and can maintain its contents with a small battery. Non-volatile memory retains its contents even if power is completely removed. SRAM and DRAM […]
A look at the computer engineering stack
The embedded world looks a lot like the computing world as technology evolves, so it’s worth taking a look at the full computer engineering stack. This kind of stack refers to the structures built on top of each other that combine to form computers, not the memory register stack that processors use and can sometimes […]
PCIe in the embedded world
PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), also known as PCIe, is a high-speed serial bus standard that is better known in IT circles for use with personal computers and servers, but PCIe is used in embedded systems, as well. As the line between high-performance computing and embedded systems blurs, embedded systems require operating systems as […]
Selecting an LED and finding the correct size resistor
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are diodes that emit light when energized. LEDs can light a room now, whereas for decades they had been too weak to do much more than act as indicators. LEDs are fun to play with, and a fairly safe way to introduce kids to principles of circuits. There’s just a few […]
Wireless and MCUs: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Zigbee?
Most of the things in the Internet of Things (IoT) will include processors, sensors, and a wireless communication path to the Internet, and all likely will be limited to a small power budget. Which one should you use? Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and ZigBee are different wireless communication protocols that are often accessible as modules for easy […]
MCUs & Dev Boards: saving power by the microAmp
A previous article about optimizing power efficiency in microcontrollers concentrated on optimizing code and using low power MCUs from manufacturers. A closer look at power saving techniques in hardware is in order, however, if you need to squeeze every drop out of an MCU that can’t be traded in for a lower-power model. Components: Many […]
What is an embedded bootloader?
Anyone who has turned on a computer might be familiar with the boot-up sequence as computer flashes lines of text on screen before the Windows logo appears. What you are seeing is a bootloader in action, loading essential software to get the minimum running on the processor chip before higher-level software can run. Embedded bootloaders […]