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What do you consider by "very limited memory?" The processor I generally use for my hobby projects has 16M Flash and 4M RAM. This isn't the 80's. > Firmware is
by HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
What do you consider by "very limited memory?"
The processor I generally use for my hobby projects has 16M Flash and 4M RAM. This isn't the 80's.
> Firmware is written once and seldom updated
Not these days where everything must have an App as an alternate frontend. Device Firmware Update was such a frequent request that we just made it a fixed-cost line item on our quotation forms when I worked at an engineering services company. Projects where the customer didn't want DFU were far rarer than the ones that did.
- samtho 3y agoMy most recent project uses an STM32F030C8 which has 64Kb of flash and 8Kb of SRAM. This is actually a beefier STM32 than I usually go for but was cheaper and more available at the time of the design. I didn’t say it was never updated. Every IoT project or company I’ve worked on or with has the ability to update firmware and a lot of development effort goes into making sure that can happen. I have not worked at any place that pushed more updates per year than I can count on a single hand. Everything goes through, often manual, integration testing (ad nauseum in some cases), and field testing before it’s even considered as a release candidate. Compare this to release cadence of a CI driven development team for the web and server applications it connects to that deploys sometimes multiple times per day.
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y agoOK. My professional projects tend to be very large, so an 'F030 would be rather small. One of my current projects is based on an STM32F769, although I think we're using the smaller 1Mb Flash version. DFU shouldn't get used a lot, I agree, but when it's needed it's a lifesaver.