12/15/2020 (2) What set of skills does an embedded system engineer need?

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Embedded Systems Engineer Embedded Systems Skills

Related Questions
What set of skills does an embedded system engineer need?
Which career is better, embedded or IT?
Answer Follow · 136 Request
How do I make a career in Embedded Systems?
15 Answers
What is the average salary of an embedded
Roger DiPaolo, Began hand-coding 8080 systems in '78, been an embedded engineer in India?
engineer ever since.
Answered July 28, 2016 · Upvoted by Gokul Periyasamy, Freelancer at Embedded Systems As a fresher I have learn Embedded Systems
(2016-present) concepts practically for an year. learning a lot…

Based on my almost 40 years of working in the embedded systems field, these are - IMHO How do people become embedded engineers?
- the minimum “must have” skills/knowledge:
Where does a beginner with only minimal
A good understanding of digital and small signal analog electronics. programming and microcontroller knowledge…
Ability to read and understand schematics. Ask Question

Ability to effectively use a Volt/Ohm meter and an Oscilloscope.

Ability to perform at least basic electronics debugging/troubleshooting.

Competency in at least one assembly language.

Competency in the ‘C’ programming language.

A good understanding of microprocessor internals (mostly the registers).

An understanding of memory regions, and their uses (heap, stack, IVT, code).

Working with hexadecimal numbers and hexadecimal math.

A very good understanding of boolean math (logic).

An excellent knowledge of what interrupts are and how they work in code.

An understanding of the different kinds of memory (RAM, ROM, Flash), the

differences between them and how they are read, written, accessed.

An understanding of multi-tasking (in the embedded world we use the original

term “multi-tasking”. The term “multi-threaded” was a term somebody made up
later to mean the exact same thing. What others call “threads” we have called
“tasks” since the 1970s).

Ability to use a debugger to perform at least simple operations such as setting

breakpoints, single stepping, examining variable values, examining memory,
examining registers - and understanding the when to enable and disable
interrupts when single stepping using a debugger.

Ability to debug multi-tasking code.

The ability to read and understand datasheets, and produce driver code for a
given device based on the information contained in its datasheet.

Understanding the advantages & disadvantages of using a foreground loop with

interrupts vs. using a multi-tasking kernel.

Developing code to run under an RTOS (Real Time Operating System), and how
to use semaphores, mutexes, queues, inter-task communications.

How to develop and debug code for peripherals such as UARTs, A/D & D/A
converters, timers, PWM generation from a timer, real-time clocks, etc.

How to develop and debug code for communications using RS-232 (and it’s
variants), SPI, I2C, and parallel data ports.

How to develop and debug code with stacks, queues, linked-lists, and other
common data constructs.

A good understanding of DMA (Direct Memory Access), and how to implement it

for systems which have DMA capability.

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Paras Shah, Embedded Systems

60 upvotes
Answered October 10, 2016
60 3
What kind of career opportunities:
Quite a lot.
A few:
•Embedded Software Engineers
–System software engineer (Kernel and RTOS)
–Application software engineer (Device Drivers)
–Software test engineer
–Driver Development - Linux
–GPS/AGPS Developer
–RF / WiFi / Communications Protocol Engineer
•Embedded Hardware Engineers
–Hardwareengineer
–Board Design Engineer
–Board (hardware) validation engineer
•Application Engineers
–Application Engineer Technical Support
–Tech Support Engineer
–Product Application Engineer (PAE)
•Marketing and Sales
Marketing executive • Sales executive

Where are t … (more)

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David Katz, Engineering Manager in Middletown, Pennsylvania

17 upvotes
Answered April 22, 2015
17
Wow what a big question......
There are many types of embedded systems, the key is finding out what kinds you like to
work on.
The types I have experienced (in general are)
1: Deeply embedded - we are talking small micro controllers where everything
RAM/FLASH/peripherals are all on the same chip. May or May not have an operating
system.
Skills needed: Assembly and or C, use of an Real Time Operating system (nano kernel) or
implementation of a simple scheduler. Good knowledge of electronics.
2. High level - these often run full operating systems (Windows, Linux, Integrity, VxWorks).
Here C+ … (more)

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Related Questions More Answers Below

Which career is better, embedded or IT?

How do I make a career in Embedded Systems?

What is the average salary of an embedded engineer in India?

Rituraj Singh, Electronics and instrumentation

6 upvotes
Answered July 9, 2016
6
If you want to learn embedded systems then you need to know what all microcontrollers
you are interested to work with. Deciding the type of microcontroller will will decide the
pre requisites needed.

For example if you want to learn and work with the most basic type of microcontroller i.e.
8051 then you should be sound enough in writing assembly codes. Though assembly
codes are not easy to learn and the limit your knowledge to a particular type of controller.

However if you wish to work on the avr family of microcontrollers then you should be
good at the basics of C language. The microcontroller … (more)

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Seetaram N T, Freelancer developer/consultant

30 upvotes
Answered April 20, 2018
30 1
I have worked on several full life cycle highend embedded products and every time it is
new learning, in terms of processor architecture, registers details, programming, tool chain
used, user interface, OS/RTOS or baremetal coding, interfaces and programming etc etc.

So the skill set is mainly driven by the product you are working on, the modules you are
going to implement or you are going to work on complete product development including
hardware and software, the domain it is catering to, the user interface, etc.

It is very difficult to generalize things but in general you need the following s … (more)

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Vinay Chaddha, 40 years: from Intel 8048 to ARM Cortex M4

110 upvotes
Answered April 25, 2014 · Upvoted by Gokul Periyasamy, Freelancer at Embedded Systems
110 1 Ishwar3Anjana, Mtech in Embedded Systems, National Institute of
(2016-present) and
Technology, Jamshedpur

A2A:

I am assuming that you wish to develop a complete embedded product and not get a job
in a big company and write parts of the code/ rectify bugs.

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Let me begin with least important skills

(1) C Language
(2) Internal Architecture of the micro controller

and the important required skills are

(1) understanding of the product - You need to use the product, understand the level of
user and what the expect from the product.

(2) Good mental maths capability

(3) deductive logic.

(4) patience - The design never works. It takes hell a lot of time and retries to solve the
bugs.

This is based on my experien … (more)

3 comments from Vinay Chaddha and more

Jatin Gandhi, lives in India

16 upvotes
Answered July 28, 2016
16 1
+

1> Ability to write state machine

2> C++ with OOAD

3> Design pattern and embedded system design patterns

4> Working knowledge of RTOS and “internals” of RTOS

5> Eclipse IDE

6> GDB with local and remote debugging.

7> Ability to debug beyond “data sheet”., May be you implemented as per data sheet but
still it does not work as expected..,.. Check out silicon errata !!!!.

8> Logic Analyzer

9> Linux application programming

10> Python.., for automation testing framework development.

11> LTTng -> open source tracing framework for Linux

12> Linker and Loaders

13> Concepts of Linux device drivers and Linux kernel … (more)

1 comment from Roger DiPaolo

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