Embedded Software Development Services

Bare-metal firmware runs directly on the microcontroller with no operating system, giving full control over timing but requiring the developer to manually manage scheduling and resource sharing. An RTOS (Real-Time Operating System) like FreeRTOS or Zephyr adds task scheduling, priority management, and preemption on top of the hardware, which is typically used when a device runs multiple concurrent operations that each have real-time deadlines to meet.

The right choice depends on system complexity — a simple sensor node may not need an RTOS, while a device juggling connectivity, sensors, and a UI usually does.

Embedded Linux is typically used when a device needs a full application environment — networking stacks, a filesystem, multiple concurrent processes, or support for higher-level languages like Python or Node.js — rather than a single tightly scheduled control loop. An RTOS is generally the better fit for hard real-time control with microsecond-level timing guarantees, while embedded Linux fits devices that need more general-purpose computing alongside real-time-adjacent tasks.

A purpose-built Linux image (via Yocto or Buildroot) containing only what the application needs is standard practice for production devices, rather than running a generic OS image intended for hobbyist boards.

Safety-critical firmware — used in industrial control systems, automotive ECUs, medical devices, or energy equipment — requires a documented, traceable safety engineering process alongside the code itself, covering requirements, design, implementation, test, and verification. This typically means compliance with standards like IEC 61508, ISO 26262, or IEC 62304, MISRA C:2012 coding compliance, static analysis with tools like Polyspace or Coverity, and in many cases MC/DC (Modified Condition/Decision Coverage) test coverage on safety-relevant code paths.

Secure OTA firmware updates typically use dual-bank (A/B) flash partitioning so a device can boot into a new firmware image while keeping the previous working version intact, combined with cryptographic signature verification (e.g., ECDSA) to ensure only authorized updates install. If a new image fails to boot, the device automatically rolls back to the last known-good version, and differential (delta) updates are often used to minimize the data transferred over constrained networks.

Embedded firmware development commonly spans wireless protocols (BLE, Wi-Fi, LoRaWAN, Thread, Matter) for IoT devices and industrial protocols (CANopen, Modbus, BACnet/IP, OPC-UA, EtherCAT) for industrial and building systems, across MCU families like ARM Cortex-M, Nordic nRF, STM32, and ESP32, or Linux-capable SoCs like NXP i.MX8 and Rockchip RK3399. The specific protocol and hardware target depend on the device's connectivity requirements and whether it needs hard real-time control or general-purpose Linux computing.