Embedded Development

Embedded Development

Hardware systems combining FPGA programmable logic with embedded processors often suffer from integration failures. Hardware engineers design DSP chains and custom peripherals but struggle to create appropriate software interfaces. Software engineers build applications but work with hardware as an opaque black box accessed through memory addresses. When systems fail to perform as expected, neither side possesses the cross-domain knowledge to isolate whether problems originate in HDL implementation, hardware timing, memory-mapped interface design, or software control logic.

Dagny Labs approaches embedded Linux development from a hardware engineer's perspective with sufficient software capability to bridge this divide. The primary focus is FPGA SoC integration — particularly Xilinx Zynq platforms with PetaLinux — but with experience across other vendors and standalone embedded systems. Userspace applications control heterogeneous systems spanning programmable logic, RFSoC data converters, and external hardware interfaces. This work emphasises well-documented memory maps, systematic register set design, and control software that reflects understanding of underlying hardware behaviour rather than treating peripherals as abstracted interfaces.

Microcontroller firmware development is offered as complementary capability rather than primary specialisation. Work with STM32, TI platforms and others focuses on device interfacing and control for larger systems or as standalone bare-metal applications. Vendor HAL frameworks and documentation enable competent development, though specialists in embedded optimisation may identify more efficient implementation approaches.

This is explicitly not deep expertise in kernel driver development, real-time operating systems, bootloader customisation, or safety-critical embedded systems. Services focus on making hardware work reliably through competent software control, not on embedded software as an independent specialisation. For projects requiring kernel work or highly optimised real-time implementations, collaboration with dedicated embedded specialists is recommended while maintaining responsibility for hardware-software interface design.

Industry Experience

Embedded OS, applications, and microcontroller firmware for multiple vendors across defence and commercial applications. Offered as complementary service, the value emerges from ability to design hardware, FPGA fabric, implement DSP processing, create appropriate AXI-mapped interfaces, document register sets, and then provide embedded control software that understands underlying hardware behaviour.

This integrated approach prevents common failures where hardware teams deliver designs without usable software interfaces, or software teams create applications that cannot effectively debug hardware behaviour. The focus remains on making hardware systems function reliably through competent embedded implementation informed by hardware understanding.

Reach Out

Having hardware-software integration issues? Please make contact to see if there is a fit.