Firmware Design

The brain of each device is Firmware and Software that work inside the device and implement full logic of the work and integrates with current platform (MCU or MPU)

Contact

Key capabilities

Languages

C/C++ / Assembler

Diagrams

Block / UML / Workflow / APIs

Interfaces

I2S / SAI / MIPI-DSI / MIPI-CSI / USB 2/3.x / LTDC / DDR3/DDR4/LPDDR4 / I2C / SPI/QSPI / UART / CAN / Ethernet / 1-Wire / Analog HD(AHD) / CVBS

Wireless

NB-IoT / LTE M / GPRS / GPS / LTE / UWB / WiFi / BLE / ZigBee / Z-Wave / LoRa / Thread / 6LoWPAN / Sub 1GHz / NFC (13,6 MHz) / RFID 433 MHZ and 128 kHz / RAIN RFID 860-960 MHz / Wi-Fi HaLow Sub-GHz

Protocols

MQTT / HTTP / FTP / Modbus TCP/RTU / SNMP / TCP/IP / UDP/IP / DLMS / custom protocols

Security

AES / SSL/TLS / custom algorithms

Libs and frameworks

TouchGFX (GUI lib for MCU) / emWin (GUI lib for MCU) / LVGL (GUI lib for MCU) / WolfSSL (SSL/TLS) / Mbed TLS(SSL/TLS) / osxMotionFX (Sensors fusion algorithm based on the Kalman theory) / FatFS / lwIP (TCP/IP stack) / WICED (Wifi stack) / aws/amazon-freertos / Paho MQTT / TensorFlow Lite

Embedded OS

FreeRTOS / TI-RTOS / ZephyrOs / Embedded Linux / Yocto / ROS

MCUs

NXP (i.MX-RT1160, i.MX RT1064, LPC1100, LPC4000) / Nordic (NRF52/NRF53/NRF9160, NRF7002 ) / TI (CC3220/CC26xx/CC1100/CC3200/MSP430) / Espressif (esp32-s2, esp32-s3, esp32-c2, esp32-c3, esp32, esp32-h2, esp8266) / ST(STM32H7/F7/F4/L4/F0/L0/WB/WL/G0 and STM8) / Atmel/Microchip(SAM D20/D21/L21/R21/V70/V71/SAMA5/SAM4/SAMD4) / Silicon Labs(EFR32/ ZGM130S) / Cypress (PSoC 3/PSoC 4) / Kinetis (Family MK81FN256VDC15) / Holtek (HT66xx, HT68xx)

MPUs

Analog Devices (ADSP-2156x SHARC) / Qualcomm (Snapdragon 625/425/610/845) / Allwinner (V3S, V3LP, A64, A33, H3, H6 series) / NXP (I.MX6/I.MX7/I.MX8) / ST(STM32MP1)

SOMs

NVIDIA (Jetson Nano, Jetson Orin SOMs) Toradex (Colibri iMX6, IMX7, IMX8 SOMs with IMX6/IMX7/IMX8 SOCs) Compulab (CL-SOM-iMX8Plus, UCM-iMX8M SOMS on NXP -iMX8Plus and iMX8M SOCs) Raspberry pi (CM3, CM4 SOMs) Inforce (Qualcomm Snapdragon 410, 820, 845 SOC) 8devices (Mango SOM on Qualcomm IPQ6000/IPQ6010 SOC) Sensiedge(SensiBle 1 and 2, SensiLora SOMs) Amdesigner(CM3588, MINI1126 SOMs with Rockchip RK3588 and RV112 MPUs)

Tools that we use

ST Cube IDE

CCSTUDIO

Segger embedded studio

Eclipse IDE for Espressif

PSoC® Creator

Simplicity Studio

Atmel/Microchip Studio for AVR® and SAM Devices

MCUXpresso IDE

CrossCore® Embedded Studio

GCC (Bar metal)

Arduino

Holtek ht-ide3000

Project process

Alpha Beta Gamma

Requirements design

As a first step our team makes technical requirements of the firmware, it describes all hardware parts (wireless/wires interfaces, sensors, control parts), communication protocol, and power modes with full logic of the work

Diagram design

At this stage, we do architecture design based on the requirements. It usually includes a workflow diagram (describe deep logic of the work) and UML/API diagram(describe all files and code classes/modules )

Start code development

In this stage, we divide the scope of the work based on the UML/API into small sprints (usually 2 weeks each) and plan the delivery with the delivery of each part. Each week we make small delivery of the code based on the planning

Code review and testing

If the code size and budget are enough (we have some rules), we do a code review by a responsible engineer of each code file and after testing(as pass review) by QA engineer (manual or write a test code). For the current steps, we use the standard GIT mechanism with merge request and management schema from Jira

Code delivery

As some part of the code is done that we agree with the customer, we make delivery of the firmware. Use usually for this GIT standard mechanism of the delivery/release code and GIT tags. The delivery includes full development of the current stage, code review, full regression testing and a demo project that shows how the current part of the code works on the dev kits or the custom device (if it’s ready at this stage)

Bring up the device with the hardware developer

As the samples of the device are ready, we prepare a test code for samples testing. The test code usually checks all peripherals (interfaces, sensors, control parts) and out the result of the testing to the console. If something is wrong, the firmware developer works together with the hardware developer to find and fix issues

Finalizing code development

It’s the last hot stage of the development, on this stage we finish the development, code review and testing of the final code with the final device version. We make sure with the customer, we fit with technical requirements and work how we expect

Support and bug fixing

Each project has a support stage and bug fixing because after production or field testing, will need some improvements and bug fixing. We usually agree with the customer on a period of support. It could be how a few months and a few years (if complicated device)