“With these three developments, 2024 looks to be an exciting year for embedded engineers!”
Three items have grabbed my attention when I think about the coming year: improved processor power consumption, continued sensor miniaturization, and an emerging embedded software language. Each of which has the potential to bring about lots of change in 2024.
A growing trend in embedded design is the increased use of battery-operated systems; ARM processors continue to target this market. Many new ARM based CPU models have power management features that provide low power modes to extend battery life, and thereby service life.
The ability to source and design with processors that support multiple power modes and include dynamic voltage scaling will drive some interesting developments in the coming year.
One such processor I am aware of currently runs at 140 uA/MHz, with a sleep mode at 25% of that total. However, it also offers a low power run mode that consumes 8uA and a low power sleep mode that consumes only 4.5uA, all while running on voltages between 1.8V to 3.6V.
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As to embedded sensors, a company called Nanusens (nanusens.com) is taking on the challenge of building MEMs sensors in a CMOS process. They appear to be very close to delivering prototype accelerometer chips that are targeted at the earbud market. We will be following this development as it will lead to higher integration of this and other sensors on a range of embedded devices.
On the embedded software front there is Embedded Rust, a newer language offering type safety features that make many data races impossible, while providing C-like performance. Rust can run under an OS or on bare metal (which is called no_std in the Rust world). For more details, read “The Embedded Rust Book” (Introduction - The Embedded Rust Book (rust-lang.org)). This on-line book explains how to run rust no_std, walks you through using a development kit for experimentation, and even lets you get going with an emulator until the hardware arrives.
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