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Embedded Firmware Development | RTOS, C/C++, Microcontroller · aquicksoft
Software for hardware — from microcontrollers to embedded Linux
We develop firmware and embedded software for microcontrollers, RTOS platforms, and embedded Linux systems. You get hardware bring-up, driver development, a secure OTA update mechanism, and production-grade code your hardware team can maintain.
What we build
Hardware without reliable firmware is just expensive plastic. Firmware bugs are uniquely difficult: they can be subtle timing issues that only appear under load, memory corruption that manifests weeks after boot, or power management regressions that drain a battery that was previously lasting months. We write embedded software that treats these constraints seriously — with deterministic timing, careful memory management, and a power budget treated as a first-class requirement. Real outcomes: a medical wearable firmware stack with a 14-day battery life on a 180mAh cell through aggressive peripheral power gating, an industrial gateway running FreeRTOS coordinating a CAN bus, Ethernet, and LTE modem with fault isolation between subsystems, and an embedded Linux BSP for a custom board from bare silicon to a working root filesystem with a reproducible Yocto build in six weeks. The principle: hardware is unforgiving, so testing must be relentless and the code must be readable by the next engineer.
Capabilities
Bare-metal C/C++ firmware — startup code, linker scripts, and peripheral initialisation for resource-constrained microcontrollers where no OS overhead is acceptable.
RTOS development — task design, inter-task communication, priority assignment, and watchdog strategies on FreeRTOS, Zephyr, and ThreadX to meet hard real-time deadlines.
HAL and peripheral drivers — UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, USB, ADC, and custom peripheral drivers written to hardware datasheets, with unit-testable abstraction layers above the hardware.
Embedded Linux BSP — board support package development with Yocto or Buildroot: kernel configuration, device tree authoring, driver integration, and a minimal root filesystem.
Bootloader and OTA — a secure dual-bank bootloader with cryptographic signature verification, rollback on failed updates, and an update pipeline compatible with your device management platform.
Power management — sleep mode design, peripheral power gating, and dynamic frequency scaling to hit battery life targets on the actual production hardware, not just the eval kit.
Communications stack — integration of Wi-Fi, BLE, LoRa, LTE-M, or NB-IoT radios with reconnection logic, backoff strategies, and buffer management for intermittent connectivity.
Testing and CI — hardware-in-the-loop test rigs, QEMU emulation for logic testing, sanitisers for memory safety, and a CI pipeline that catches regressions before they reach the factory floor.
Stack
Languages: C (C17), C++ (C++17/20 with embedded constraints), Python for host-side tooling
RTOS: FreeRTOS, Zephyr RTOS, ThreadX (Azure), Mbed OS
Toolchains: GCC ARM, Clang, IAR, Keil MDK, CMake, West (Zephyr)
Yocto Project, Buildroot, Linux kernel device tree, U-Boot
Testing: Ceedling/Unity for unit tests, QEMU for emulation, hardware-in-the-loop rigs
How we work
Hardware and requirements review — we review your schematics, datasheet set, and functional requirements before writing a line of code. Surprises at the hardware level are much cheaper to fix in this phase than in firmware.
Bring-up and skeleton — clock tree, power domains, debug interface, and a minimal blinky that proves the toolchain, linker script, and startup code are all working on the actual silicon.
Subsystem development — one peripheral or functional block at a time, each with a unit test and a documented interface. Hardware abstraction layers are defined early so the application layer can be tested on a host machine.
Integration and real-time validation — subsystems integrated with timing analysis against your hard real-time requirements, power profiling on the production board, and stress testing across the full temperature and voltage range if the application requires it.
OTA and production handoff — a secure bootloader with an update pipeline connected to your device management system, a factory programming guide, and a test procedure your manufacturing partner can run on every board off the line.
Where this fits
Embedded firmware development suits connected medical devices, industrial sensors and controllers, consumer electronics, smart energy meters, fleet telematics hardware, and any product where software runs on custom silicon. We are most often called in when a hardware startup needs a firmware team alongside their hardware engineers, when an existing product needs a security audit and OTA capability added, or when a firmware codebase has grown to the point where only one person understands it.
What you get
Hardware bring-up report covering clock, power, and debug interface verification on production silicon.
Firmware source code with a CMake or West build system, documented architecture, and a hardware abstraction layer that makes unit testing feasible.
Unit and integration test suite runnable in CI on both QEMU and hardware-in-the-loop.
Secure bootloader with OTA update pipeline and rollback capability.
Power profile report with sleep and active current measurements at key operating points.
Factory programming guide and board-level test procedure.
FAQ
What microcontroller families do you work with?
Primarily ARM Cortex-M (STM32, Nordic nRF, NXP LPC and i.MX, Espressif ESP32), RISC-V where the project specifies it, and embedded Linux on Cortex-A processors. We are not tied to a specific toolchain or IDE — we work with whatever your hardware team has chosen, or we advise on selection as part of the architecture phase.
How do you test firmware before hardware is available?
Unit tests for logic layers run on the host machine using native compilers. Peripheral interaction is tested using abstraction layers with mock implementations. For system-level behaviour we use QEMU where the target architecture is supported. Once hardware is available, we move to hardware-in-the-loop testing. We aim to have the bulk of the logic covered by tests that do not require hardware, so hardware integration testing focuses on timing and electrical behaviour rather than basic logic.
How do you make over-the-air updates safe?
A secure bootloader verifies a cryptographic signature on every update before flashing. Updates are written to a secondary flash bank while the current firmware continues to run, then a watchdog-monitored boot from the new image confirms it starts correctly before the old image is marked for overwrite. If the new firmware fails to boot, the device reverts to the previous version automatically. This means a bad firmware update cannot permanently brick a deployed device.
Can you add OTA capability to an existing product?
Yes, though it depends on the bootloader and flash layout. If the existing bootloader has no update capability, we add a secure bootloader that integrates with the existing application. If the flash is not partitioned for dual-bank updates, we assess whether the layout can be restructured. We document the retrofit complexity and risk honestly as part of scoping.
Ready to start?
Send us your hardware block diagram or schematics, the target microcontroller or SoC, and a functional requirements list. You will receive a technical feasibility note and a fixed-price discovery quote within three business days.
