Leveraging the emApps Virtual Machine in Embedded Apps
What you'll learn:
- What is Segger’s emApps?
- Why you need a compact, embedded virtual machine (VM).
- Where is emApps being utilized.
All kinds of virtual machines (VMs) are available, with many finding homes in embedded applications. Platforms like the Java virtual machine (JVM) are used on servers and embedded applications with features like garbage collection. Unfortunately, they can have lots of overhead, making them less desirable for small, microcontroller-based systems.
In this podcast, I talked with Rolf Segger, Founder of Segger Microcontroller Systems, about the company’s new emApps virtual platform.
The emApps platform is an interpreter-based, 32-bit VM that runs C applications. The VM isolates the application from the rest of the embedded system. An API table provides the application with its only link to the outside world. Unlike a native C application, an application running in the VM can’t access data outside its sandbox.
There are many embedded alternatives like MicroPython and eLua, but even their overhead can be significant. The small footprint of emApps and the simple interfacing make it a natural alternative, especially for space-constrained systems.
Segger uses emApps internally with its series of flash programmers (see figure) and debug systems. It’s slowly exposing more functionality and availability to developers so that they can customize these tools.
SHOW NOTES
01:45 – What is emApps?
06:11 – Accessing Other Programs
11:07 – How emApps is Integrated into Systems
19:01 – Getting Access to emApps
20:00 – Other Segger Products
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About the Author
William G. Wong
Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF
I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.
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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.
I still get a hand on software and electronic hardware. Some of this can be found on our Kit Close-Up video series. You can also see me on many of our TechXchange Talk videos. I am interested in a range of projects from robotics to artificial intelligence.
Rolf Segger
Founder, Segger Microcontroller Systems
Rolf Segger founded SEGGER Microcontroller in 1992 with the aim of creating portable software for embedded systems.