Firmware Development and Embedded Systems
Technology has become an integral part of our life ranging from a daily householder to a large industry. In our day to day life we come across so many appliances, equipments and heavy machineries which have made our life simpler but have you ever given it a thought that how does the music system in your car works and how does that crane in your factory lifts heavy materials on your command. Firmware is the built-in software that controls how these items operate. Manufacturers are constantly updating their firmware revisions, so it is important that you have the latest version. The Firmware Development Process contains many different computer programming languages each designed to fulfill various requirements depending on the project at hand.
If necessary development and research is not done then, the firmware becomes old rendering the gadget useless. So, all firmware need a planned firmware development process for their survival. However, unlike most modern operating systems, firmware rarely has a well-evolved automatic mechanism of updating itself to fix any functionality issues detected after shipping the unit. To support continuous growth in firmware development it is important to inherit and utilize technical knowledge. The Firmware development process is used as a development process in which each project could support different development techniques namely the waterfall and agile techniques. A change to the hardware logic that does not affect the firmware need not necessarily require a version change. However, its always safer to increment the version register even when not needed. With each passing day more and more people are getting dependent upon technology, whether it is related to computer or to mobile phones. If you are a neophyte and new to the world of IT then you must have come across the term embedded firmware programming. Embedded firmware programming is somehow related to firmware development which is nothing but the activity of programming system software.
The biggest and prime characteristic of Firmware Development Process is that it requires a greater degree of hardware awareness. This notion generally arises when it is compared to application programming. This is one field which requires expert technical assistance and knowledge. This is the reason why majority of the embedded firmware programming work is outsourced to other companies. This highly technical field is growing day by day; this is the reason why now you can find various companies offering these services. The main benefit of firmware in commercial technology is that it can easily be updated even after it has already been distributed to customers in manufactured devices. Almost all software companies provide several updates to the firmware, thereby, correcting a few bugs from previous versions and making it extremely easy to upgrade with some basic directions. The need to increase the speed of product development and reduce costs is more acute than ever enabling companies to be competitive in the market space. To meet this need while maintaining a high level of design quality, development management and repetitive optimization of development processes have become more popular.