Senior Embedded Firmware Engineer with over 30 years’ experience in the Electronics Industry
I'm experienced in deeply embedded applications using C to produce highly cost-effective solutions where multiple serial communication protocols are required. My 20 years' experience in lighting control systems includes standardisation work on international standard protocols. I'm an active contributor at all stages of product lifecycle from specification and design through to test and field support. I am continuously looking to improve skills and knowledge both personally and within the team. I prefer to work on applications which offset their production impact by having long-term environmental benefits.
Recently Updated Skills (2019-2021)
Technologies
- 32-bit ARM using STM32 Cortex-M4
- Bluetooth LE using Nordic nRF51/52
- FreeRTOS
- USB 2.0
- Serial Protocol topics: CRCs, COBS framing.
IDEs & Editors
- STM32CubeIDE
- Segger Embedded Studio for Nordic Semi
- Visual Studio 2019 used for off-target unit testing C and for .NET WinForms applications
- VS Code
Practices
- TDD & Unit Testing (MS Test and minunit)
- Version Control using Git (GitAhead) & GitHub
Industry Proven Skills (2005-2019)
Firmware Development
8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers- Hi-Tech and Microchip C for PIC12/16/18/24 using MPLAB IDE v8, ICD3
- Subversion using TortoiseSVN & WinMerge
- Production firmware and test jig firmware
Software Development
For Windows XP through to Windows 10. Project sizes up to 21K effective lines/5MB code.Specialist Topics
- Serial bus communications protocols - SPI, I2C, CAN, RS-232/UART, TCP/IP, UDP
- Distributed processing and network protocols
- Infra-red remote control
- Lighting specific protocols: DMX-512, DSI, DALI
- Multi-tasking on deeply embedded systems without an RTOS
- Bootloaders (via CAN, USB)
- Occupancy (PIR, MW) and light sensors
- Interested in security and encryption. Used XTEA in embedded applications; and AES, RSA, SHA-256 in Windows applications, as well as obfuscation and anti-tamper techniques for an offline PC node locked application.
- Windows Installers using Advanced Installer, BAT files, VB6 & VB.NET based pre-requisite checkers.
Electronics Hardware Design (1990 onwards)
- Analysis and debugging of hardware problems of equipment and networks after deployment.
- EMC and LVD design considerations and compliance tests.
- Component choice and reliability calculations
- Use of circuit simulators such as LTspice
- Test equipment such as DSOs, logic analysers, signal generators, EMC test equipment etc
- Analogue design including filters, interface circuits, transient suppression, power supplies.
Contact Details
email: work at martincowen.me.uk