Embedded Systems Weekly #119

This week, Mark Russinovich tweeted:

Speaking of languages, it's time to halt starting any new projects in C/C++ and use Rust for those scenarios where a non-GC language is required. For the sake of security and reliability. the industry should declare those languages as deprecated.

Mark is CTO of Microsoft Azure and the author of the famous Sysinternals tools. He knows a lot about low-level developments. I vividly feel the pressure to learn Rust. Do you feel it too?

Happy reading!

Articles

A pair of Rust kernel modules
Rust is coming to the Linux kernel but we were still missing some advanced examples. Thanks to Andreas Hindborg and to Almeida Filho this is now a problem from the past.

Programming STM32 Blue Pill using makefile
In this article, the author describes and provides a template to build, program and debug with almost no ST Microelectronics tools. Almost, because Denis Bodor makes me realise that the project is actually using the file STM32F103C8TX_FLASH.ld which is auto-generated by STM32CubeIDE. Thank you Denis!

I'm Building a Self-Destructing USB Drive
Did you ever think about what it would take to create USB stick that destroys its flash if it is not plugged with a wet finger? Of course not, but I'm sure you're curious about the solution now! The self-destruct mode is described in the second part.

GCC's new fortification level: The gains and costs
This article describes the last evolution built-in GCC to help us develop safer programs. The improvements revealed several issues even in the GNU C library.

Stand alone SSTV camera
Before this article I didn't know what SSTV was. SSTV (Slow-scan television) is a picture transmission method. In this project, this is the method used by the author to transmit images captured by an ESP32-cam via radio. The author's conclusion is that it can be a potential solution when simplicity and low cost are important criteria.

News / Business

Report: Apple to Move a Part of its Embedded Cores to RISC-V, Stepping Away from Arm ISA
RISC-V is eating market share bit by bit. In this case, is it because of technical superiority or simply to avoid licensing fees? what do you think?

Tools / Libraries

F4PGA
In the world of FPGA tools, it is refreshing to be able to use the suite of open source tools provided by F4PGA. For now, it supports only Xilinx 7-Series, Lattice iCE40, Lattice ECP5 FPGAs and QuickLogic EOS S3 but the team behind the projet is working to support more targets.

Jobs

Canoo, ADAS Feature Integration Engineer, Full-time, US (Full remote)
Canoo’s mission is to bring EVs to Everyone and build a world-class team to deploy this sustainable mobility revolution.