Embedded Firmware Basics

How microcontrollers expose digital I/O through memory-mapped registers, talk to other chips over UART/SPI/I2C, read analog signals, and react to events in real time with timers and interrupts.

embedded systemsmicrocontrollersfirmware

Part of the Embedded Systems Engineer roadmap

Sub-lessons

GPIO & Memory-Mapped I/OHow microcontrollers expose digital pins as ordinary memory addresses, and why the volatile qualifier matters.intermediateMarch 2, 2025 · 1 min read

Communication Protocols: UART, SPI & I2CHow UART, SPI, and I2C move bytes between chips, the timing and framing rules of each, and the trade-offs that decide which one fits a given peripheral.intermediateMarch 3, 2025 · 3 min read

Analog I/O (ADC/DAC)How analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters bridge the continuous physical world and discrete firmware, and the sampling and quantization limits that govern accuracy.intermediateMarch 4, 2025 · 3 min read

Timers & InterruptsHow hardware timers generate precise timing without CPU polling, and how interrupts let firmware react to events in real time.intermediateMarch 5, 2025 · 3 min read