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Colin Walls

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Firmware/Software Engineering Management

Colin Walls has over thirty years experience in the electronics industry, largely dedicated to embedded systems software. A frequent presenter at conferences and seminars and author of numerous technical articles and two books on embedded software, Colin is an embedded software technologist in the Mentor Graphics Embedded Software Division and is based in the UK. His regular blog is located at http://blogs.mentor.com/colinwalls and he may be reached by email at colin_walls@mentor.com.

Colin Walls

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- - 01.30.2013
  - The millennium bug revisited
  Colin Walls considers the possibility of a repeat of the “millennium bug” (aka Y2K) panic, when it was thought that timers in systems might not be able to cope with the date roll over to the year 2000.
- - 01.11.2010
  - Deterministic dynamic memory allocation & fragmentation in C & C++
  Colin Walls details the problems with dynamic memory allocation, which tends to be non-deterministic, leading to unexpected allocation failures and describes an approach that resolves such issues.
- - 04.12.2008
  - Guidelines for using C++ as an alternative to C in embedded designs: Part 2
  In this second in a two part tutorial, Colin Walls addresses the barriers to use of C++ by C programmers, providing some guidelines on C++ object encapsulation, and making C++ and your design's RTOS play nice.
- - 04.11.2008
  - Guidelines for using C++ as an alternative to C in embedded designs: Part 1
  In this two part tutorial, Colin Walls addresses the well-known barriers to use of C++ by C programmers, and provides some guidelines including cleaning up C and an in-between alternative he calls "C+." First up: Why is C++ not more widely used?
- - 11.11.2007
  - Build the right UI for your complex embedded system
  The tradeoffs involved in building a UI can be many. Making the right choices can make or break your system.
- - 01.30.2013
  - The millennium bug revisited
  Yes. You are right. It is only a temporary fix, but it meant that a device might have up to 100 year lifespan [which is overkill] instead of around 20 [which was tight].
- - 12.14.2012
  - Is assembly language best?
  Chris. I agree with you entirely. I think that embedded programmers should, at a bare minimum be able to understand assembly, if only to make sure that the compiler is doing a good job. Resorting to writing assembly is also an option that I would not want to see removed. The art of writing embedded code comes from understanding the tools and what they can do for you in order to use limited resources in an optimal way.
- - 10.09.2012
  - Tools for embedded, your opinions
  I am with you on the blinking LED issue. There is a cool feeling when a system "comes alive" - almost like you have breathed life into to it yourself. The amount of information that a single LED can provide is surprising, as there are many possible states: on, off, flashing [with various duty cycles], pulse sequences, Morse code ... The biggest error is to conclude that an LED flashing shows the code is working. Sure, you want it to flash to indicate processing is occurring, but make sure that it is accessed from real code. I have seen a status LED driven from a timer ISR, which would carry on merrily reporting that all's well when the rest of the system had crashed.
- - 07.06.2011
  - Is low power driving move to integrated HW/SW codesign?
  I recently jointly authored a white paper "Embedded System Power Consumption: A Software or Hardware Issue?", which may interest readers and may be obtained for free here: http://www.mentor.com/embedded-software/resources/overview/embedded-system-power-consumption-a-software-or-hardware-issue-374257e7-4a93-4229-84a6-89d855b2443b