# 202: Flush and Your Inner Fish

- Show: [Embedded.fm](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm)
- Published: 2017-05-31
- Length: 1h 08m
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish
- Listen: https://makingembeddedsystems.libsyn.com/202-flush-and-your-inner-fish

## Summary

Professor Alex Dean, from North Carolina State University, discusses his textbook 'Embedded Systems Fundamentals with Arm Cortex M Based Microcontrollers' and his teaching philosophy. He explains how the book uses the FRDM-KL25Z board to teach concurrency, scheduling, and hardware-software interaction, emphasizing the importance of understanding processor architecture and assembly for debugging and optimization. Dean also details a student project optimizing energy consumption on the NXP Kinetis KL25Z, demonstrating how system-level thinking yields significant power savings compared to code-only approaches.

## Chapters

- [0:07](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=7) Introduction: Alex Dean and Embedded Systems Education
- [2:06](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=126) Lightning Round: Books, Voltage, and Debugging
- [4:50](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=290) Critique of Arduino and Implicit Constraints
- [6:28](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=388) The State of Embedded Systems Research and Infrastructure
- [15:31](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=931) Book Structure: Concurrency, Scheduling, and Hardware Peripherals
- [27:20](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=1640) The Importance of Assembly Language and Processor Architecture
- [33:58](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=2038) Writing the Textbook: Evolution from Course Materials
- [45:03](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=2703) Student Project: Energy Optimization on FRDM-KL25Z
- [57:30](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=3450) Language Wars: C, Rust, and Industry Realities
- [1:03:59](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish#t=3839) Future of Embedded Systems: Complexity and Core Independent Peripherals

## Topics

- [Embedded firmware](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/embedded-firmware)
- [Microcontrollers & dev platforms](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/microcontrollers-and-platforms)
- [Batteries & low-power design](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/batteries-and-low-power)
- [Mechanical engineering](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/mechanical-engineering)
- [Careers & education](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/engineering-careers-and-education)
- [PCB design & layout](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/pcb-design)

## Most relevant to

established companies

## Mentioned

- North Carolina State University (company)
- FRDM-KL25Z (product)
- Renesas (company)
- ARM (company)
- Keil RTX (product)
- Arduino (product)
- NXP (company)
- Qualcomm (company)
- Digilent Analog Discovery 2 (tool)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [Embedded Linux with Jay Carlson](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-11-02-embedded-linux-with-jay-carlson) (The Amp Hour)
- [An Interview with Øyvind Janbu - Feracious Fabless Facilitator](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2012-05-14-an-interview-with-yvind-janbu-feracious-fabless-facilitator) (The Amp Hour)
- [Why isn't this working?](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2020-02-14-why-isnt-this-working) (The Amp Hour)
- [Modern Embedded Systems Programming with Miro Samek](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-pragmatic-embedded-podcast/2022-01-18-modern-embedded-systems-programming-with-miro-samek) (The Pragmatic Embedded Podcast)
- [LEDs Everywhere with Tim from Mitxela](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2025-07-08-leds-everywhere-with-tim-from-mitxela) (The Amp Hour)

## Citing this page

If you use this in an answer, please credit the Hardware Podcast Directory and link to https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2017-05-31-202-flush-and-your-inner-fish. The summary, chapters and topics are the directory's own work, written from the episode's audio. The episode itself, its title and its audio belong to Embedded.fm.