Why embedded IoT benefits from software portability

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How do you address the software development needs of rapidly advancing hardware innovations in embedded IoT? Use your software assets.

www.embedded.com/, Feb. 02, 2023 – 

Embedded IoT (internet of things) devices are small, constrained systems and code development needs to keep up to date with continuous and rapid advances in the hardware. By enabling software portability, it is possible to address some of the software development challenges.

The way to deal with the growth and proliferation of hardware in embedded IoT and not get caught up with having to develop new code for every device is to leverage your software assets, as CEO of MicroEJ, Fred Rivard, said in a recent interview with EE Times. He said, "To exploit hardware innovation fast, you need to leverage your software assets."

Using "containers" is one such way of leveraging those assets. As defined in "Why the future of embedded software lies in containers," it explains that containers can wrap up a program along with all of its dependencies into a single, isolated executable environment. In fact, containers have also been described as lightweight virtual machines.

In addition to containers, microservices are another way of enabling software plug-and-play capability for embedded IoT devices. These break an application up into a collection of small autonomous services, with each microservice independently deployable and coupled to other microservices in the application.

This emergence of virtualization and software containers for low-cost, low-power devices supports the proliferation of intelligent edge IoT. It also supports the concept of distributed intelligence, with the ability to create a network of programmable devices with upgradable features–enabling software-defined products. This "software defined" capability has been well known for years in areas like telecoms. More recently, the automotive sector is adjusting to the capability with the emergence of software-defined vehicles.

Software-defined products and services are enabled by the combination of hardware programmability and the ability to add or change functionality with over-the-air (OTA) updates. Virtualization and abstraction of workloads from the underlying hardware can enable more flexible and agile hardware platforms and delivery of software-defined or software-enabled services.

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