S2 E1: From Code to Creation: The Building Blocks of Firmware with Elecia White

The Builder Circle · 28 Nov 2023 · 1h 05m

What this episode covers

Elecia White, founder of Logical Elegance and host of the Embedded FM podcast, explains the unique constraints of firmware development for hardware entrepreneurs. She outlines the typical firmware build-out process, emphasizing the importance of early sensor selection, modular architecture, and critical testing phases like board bring-up and manufacturing validation. White advises founders to insource only their 'secret sauce' algorithms while buying commodities like GPS modules or radios, and warns against common pitfalls such as adding over-the-air updates at the last minute or ignoring market validation.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Over the Air · 21m

    A Smart Approach for Doing Firmware Right

    Alan Vardon, Director of the Smart Home Division at Globe Electric, discusses the challenges of transitioning a 90-year-old lighting company into the IoT space. He details the critical importance of firmware, sharing how a firmware update caused pairing issues with new routers and how integrating a camera with RGB lighting required extensive debugging. Vardon emphasizes that while hardware experience is valuable, continuous testing and user experience are key to success in smart home products.

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 02m

    451: From Concept to Launch

    Elecia White, founder of Logical Elegance, and panelists Phillip Johnston of Embedded Artistry and Tyler Hoffman of Memfault discuss the software tasks often overlooked during the transition from concept to manufacturing launch. They emphasize the necessity of robust bootloaders, OTA update mechanisms, and dedicated manufacturing firmware that operates offline. The group highlights specific failures such as bricked inventory due to faulty OTA, network congestion in factories, and the high cost of testing security features like self-bricking. They also cover the importance of per-device key management, deterministic testing environments, and integrating manufacturing validation into CI pipelines.

  • The Amp Hour · 1h 19m

    Firmware for Hardware Engineers with Phillip Johnston

    Phillip Johnston of Embedded Artistry explains how hardware engineers can improve firmware quality by adopting software engineering practices like separation of concerns, information hiding, and loose coupling. He details the implementation of Continuous Integration (CI) pipelines using tools like Jenkins and GitHub Actions to automate testing, static analysis, and hardware-in-the-loop checks. Johnston also discusses the strategic shift from bare-metal development to ecosystems like Zephyr RTOS and the importance of designing for change to mitigate supply chain risks.

  • Embedded.fm · 56m

    347: Be Careful About the Bits

    Elecia White and Christopher White discuss API design strategies for embedded systems, emphasizing the use of abstraction layers and the POSIX model (open, close, read, write) to manage hardware interactions. They address a listener's question about organizing firmware modules, suggesting block diagrams to define hardware, control flow, and layered interfaces. The hosts also tackle a career dilemma involving a startup engineer who feels demoted after being acquired by Big Tech and assigned to work with a senior 'gray-beard' engineer, advising on how to navigate team dynamics and imposter syndrome.

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 15m

    173: Everything's Amazing

    George Stocker, former VP of Software Development at Jewelbots, discusses his transition from a 10-year career in application development to embedded firmware engineering. He details the challenges of building the Jewelbot, a Bluetooth-enabled friendship bracelet for girls, including porting the Nordic nRF51 SDK, debugging hardware-software interactions, and managing the unique constraints of a hardware startup. Stocker highlights the humbling experience of learning embedded systems from scratch, the insular nature of the embedded community, and the specific technical hurdles of BLE mesh networking and power management.

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