Your Step-By-Step Guide for Performance-Level Calculations of Safety-Critical Electronics
1. Introduction If you are a designer of an electronic system and you need to understand how well your system reacts to a state that can cause harm to a human being (a battery pack catching fire due to cell overvoltage or cell over temperature), it is useful to calculate a “Performance Level”. This […]
How to Interface a Hard-Core Processor with FPGA (Parallel Asynchronous Interface)?
What is a Hard-Core Processor? A hard-core processor is just like any other processor in terms of functionality and application. It has all the basic building blocks such as registers, memory interfaces, ALU etc. and is fully capable of performing general purpose computing tasks. However, unlike soft-core processors, it has a fixed design layout […]
Common JTAG Connectivity Issues and How to Solve Them (A Designer’s Perspective)
Why Do We Need JTAG? With recent advancements in technology and shrinking device sizes, it becomes more difficult to be able to test the design and the underlying circuitry. There’s often no space available to attach probes or have test ports if you have to examine the performance and functionality of the device. That’s where […]
How to Write A Driver for Accelerometer LIS3DSH in Zephyr?
In our previous Zephyr blog, we looked at how to interface a simple IMU – Accelerometer sensor with Zephyr RTOS running on NRF52832. Knowing how to interface sensors over SPI protocol allows user to communicate with sensor’s register and get values for acceleration. We saw how we can create our own library for the sensor, […]
SoC vs SoM : System on Chip vs System on Module
What is System on Chip, SoC? A System on Chip or SoC is a key component in Embedded Systems today. An SoC refers to a single chip or IC with a completely electronic or computer system fabricated. It usually integrates a CPU, GPU, DSP, memory, I/Os, and external interfaces such as USB and analog input […]
ESD Best Practices
What is ESD? ESD Stands for Electrostatic Discharge. Electrostatic discharge occurs when electricity flows through a conductive body when touched by another charged body. This usually happens when two charged bodies are in physical contact. In the case of electronics, this phenomenon occurs when the circuit is shorted out at some place, or a […]
How to Choose Between Microcontroller and FPGA for Your Embedded Application?
You may wonder if you should use Micronctroller or FPGA for your next embedded application. It’s important to know the difference between the two. Let’s have a look at this table for a brief comparison. Features MCU FPGA Hardware Structure MCU has a fixed hardware structure. It only offers the custom use of that […]
Hold-Up Capacitor: Calculations and Uses
What is a Hold-Up Capacitor & When Do We Need It? In real-time critical applications such as avionics and life-support systems, it is very important to have an uninterruptable power supply supplying adequate power to the system. Any sudden drop in power can jeopardize the system’s working, leading to fatalities in the worst-case scenario. Here […]
What is MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and How To Calculate It?
MTBF as a Failure Time Frequency Prediction Criteria From play gadgets to professional machines, it is relevant for the product sellers as well as regulatory authorities and consumers to know the probability of failures expected in the lifetime of the device. In electronics, one metric often used to estimate device performance over its lifetime is […]
All about LiDAR Technology – Complete Guide
LiDAR or Light Detection And Ranging is an optical remote-sensing technique that makes use of laser to sample Earth’s surface. Highly accurate point cloud datasets are produced by LiDAR that can be visualized and analyzed using CAD tools (for example ArcGIS). Terms and Definitions Field of View (FoV) Field of View is the angular range in which […]