This article explores one major advantage XP could provide to embedded software developers: the ability to achieve meaningful progress prior to hardware availability. The article also looks at some of the difficulties of applying XP to embedded software development.

Software optimization is the process of improving software by eliminating bottlenecks so that it operates more efficiently on a given system and optimally uses resources. Identifying the bottlenecks in the target application and eliminating them appropriately is the key to efficient optimization. There are many optimization methodologies, which help developers answer the questions of why to optimize, what to optimize and how to optimize, and these methods aid developers in reaching their performance requirements. In this article, I’ll use a top-down approach and this means that I’ll start at a very high level, taking a look at the overall environment, and then successively drill down into more detail as I begin to tune the individual components within the system. This approach is targeted towards Java server applications, but can be applied to client applications as well.

Since multi-core systems are spreading fast, the problem of parallel programming becomes more and more urgent. However, even the majority of experienced developers are new to this sphere. The existing compilers and code analyzers allow finding some bugs, which appear during parallel code development. However, many errors are not diagnosed. The article contains description of a number of errors, which lead to incorrect behavior of parallel programs created with OpenMP.

Software in modern embedded systems is often realized by using prefabricated reconfigurable computing devices such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Such devices support the use of portable hardware description languages and, as a result, have vulnerabilities consistent with normal software applications. In this article, we consider the nature of adversarial reverse-engineering attacks in this environment and measures of protection.

Most complex cyber-physical systems (CPSs) are mixed-criticality systems that have to be resilient against software design faults, hardware failures, and physical hazards under software control. This article reviews useful design principles and architecture patterns for the development of such systems.

This article discusses the appropriate architectures for RFID infrastructure to mesh with the greater IT ecosystem of a company. The article highlights several considerations often overlooked by RFID vendors, explains the architectural options to consider when choosing the provider of an RFID infrastructure, and examines in some detail the architectural benefits of these choices.

Real-time Java™ combines ease of programming in the Java language with the performance required by applications that must conform to real-time constraints. Extensions to the Java language provide features for real-time environments that are lacking in the traditional Java runtime environment. This article, the first in a three-part series, describes some of these features and explains how you can apply them to enable real-time performance in your own applications.

Despite a prevalent industry perception to the contrary, the agile practices of Test-Driven Development and Continuous Integration can be successfully applied to embedded software. We present here a holistic set of practices, platform independent tools, and a new design pattern (Model Conductor Hardware - MCH) that together produce: good design from tests programmed first, logic decoupled from hardware, and systems testable under automation. Ultimately, this approach yields an order of magnitude or more reduction in software flaws, predictable progress, and measurable velocity for data-driven project management. We use the approach discussed herein for real-world production systems and have included a full C-based sample project to illustrate it.

Some Java™ applications fail to provide reasonable quality of service despite achieving other performance goals, such as average latency or overall throughput. By introducing pauses or interruptions that aren't under the application's control, the Java language and runtime system can sometimes be responsible for an application's inability to meet service-performance metrics. This article, second in a three-part series, explains the root causes of delays and interruptions in a JVM and describes techniques you can use to mitigate them so that your applications deliver more consistent service quality.

Effective integration of hardware and software requires an understanding of fundamental concepts such as a bit, address, and interrupt. Using these concepts in the context of protocols and applications is what makes an interface useful. This article looks at these fundamental concepts from a software view and then applies them to simple applications where they can be used to expand into other application domains and uses of hardware and software.