Episode 19: Embedded Systems and Design
December 12, 2011
Ever wonder what it would take to get your refrigerator to talk to your web server? Take a peek into the world of embedded design! Learn to connect the physical world with the virtual.
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We are joined by Bill Wong of alt.embedded, part of Electronic Design Magazine
What is an embedded device?
- The term "embedded devices" covers a wide range of things and topics
- Something that provides the bridge between the hardware and software world
What sorts of things run embedded firmware?
- Everything from a coffee maker to an iPhone or Android device is part of embedded computing
- Glucose meters, tablets, smartphones, robots
- Tshirts with lights, devices chargers
- Eventually, almost everything will have an embedded chip in it
- Have you seen Twine?
And what are the capabilities of these devices?
- Phone chargers can detect when the device is fully charged and throttle back the amount of power being supplied
- Smart appliances, anything with an LCD interface, anything that bridges sensors into the PC/Mac world.
- Greeting cards that play music
What sorts of things are driving the increase in popularity?
- These chips are getting cheaper and cheaper
- So many things that were never tied to computing in the past now find great value in incorporating embedded chips
- Smartphone and tablet computing
- Even low-end microcontrollers today are far more capable than things like the original Nintendo
- Cloud computing puts great power behind small, low-end microcontrollers