FIRMWARE THAT SHIPSRELIABLE, CERTIFIED,FIELD-PROVEN
From bare-metal drivers to full RTOS applications — firmware built to survive the field.
Ankh engineers firmware across the full embedded stack — BSP and peripheral drivers through RTOS task architecture, bootloader design, and OTA update infrastructure. We've shipped firmware for medical devices (IEC 62304), aerospace (DO-178C), industrial controllers, and consumer IoT at scale. Every project is paired with a rigorous test strategy: unit tests, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) automation, and static analysis to ensure correct behavior on day one and across every OTA update.
What We Build
RTOS Application Firmware
Multi-tasking firmware on FreeRTOS, Zephyr, ThreadX, and embOS — RTOS selected based on memory budget, scheduling requirements, and certification path, with task prioritization, inter-task communication via queues and semaphores, and deterministic interrupt latency designed from the ground up.
Bare-Metal & Resource-Constrained Firmware
Lean bare-metal firmware using interrupt-driven state machines and cooperative scheduling — for ultra-low-power sensors, simple actuator controllers, and cost-optimized designs where an RTOS is overkill or memory is measured in kilobytes.
BSP & HAL Layer Development
Board support packages and HALs isolating application firmware from silicon details — covering GPIO, timers, ADC, DAC, DMA, RTC, watchdog, and all major serial peripherals — making firmware portable across MCU revisions and enabling clean unit testing.
Peripheral Driver Development
Custom UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, USB, and Ethernet drivers to throughput and latency specifications — handling I2C clock stretching, SPI mode mismatches, CAN arbitration, USB descriptor negotiation, and DMA ring buffer management that generic vendor drivers often mishandle.
Bootloader & Secure Boot
First and second-stage bootloaders with ECDSA P-256 or RSA-2048 signature verification, rollback protection via OTP version counters, and dual-bank flash layouts guaranteeing recovery from interrupted updates — compatible with ARM TrustZone and hardware security modules.
OTA Firmware Update Architecture
OTA systems covering delta compression, image signing, staged rollout, A/B partition switching, and fleet version management — integrated with AWS IoT Jobs, Azure IoT Hub, or custom MQTT pipelines, with rollback triggers on failed boot or CRC mismatch.
Power Management Firmware
Power optimization using tickless idle, DVFS, peripheral gating, and coordinated sleep management across MCU, radio, sensors, and memory — with automated current profiling at each system state to validate against battery life targets.
Firmware Testing & Validation
Structured test strategies spanning Unity/CppUTest unit tests on host, HIL automation using Python and pytest with physical GPIO and serial stimulation, and fault injection testing — with PC-lint, Polyspace, or Coverity static analysis applied to safety-critical modules.
Safety-Certified Firmware
Firmware documentation artifacts for IEC 62304 (medical), DO-178C (aerospace), and IEC 61508 (industrial) certification — including software requirements specifications, architecture descriptions, traceability matrices, and test evidence packages reviewable by notified bodies.
How We Work
Firmware Architecture Review
We analyze your schematic, MCU selection, and requirements to produce a firmware architecture document covering RTOS rationale, memory map, task/interrupt priority table, and boot sequence. For safety-critical projects this satisfies the Software Architecture Description required by IEC 62304 or DO-178C.
BSP & Driver Bring-Up
Clock trees, power rail sequencing, and reset behavior are validated against the hardware before any application code runs. Each peripheral driver is written and verified in isolation with loopback tests and logic analyzer capture.
Application Firmware Development
Sprint cycles deliver bi-weekly builds for integration testing, with Git feature branches, mandatory code review, and static analysis gates at every merge. RTOS tasks are profiled for stack usage and WCET using SystemView trace points.
HIL Test Automation
A dedicated HIL rig runs pytest scripts through hundreds of scenarios — protocol edge cases, interrupt stress, power cycle recovery — with results logged to CI on every build. Overnight regression coverage replaces manual testing on each firmware commit.
OTA & Security Integration
Bootloader and OTA infrastructure is stress-tested with forced power interruptions at every update phase to validate rollback, and secure boot key provisioning is tested against valid and invalid signatures. End-to-end OTA delivery, differential patching, and fleet dashboards are validated against your device management platform.
Release & Documentation Package
Production firmware ships as signed release binaries with programming scripts, ICD, errata, and test evidence report; certified products receive the full lifecycle documentation set ready for submission. Source code is delivered with a clean Git history, Doxygen inline docs, and a developer onboarding guide.
The Firmware Engineering Details That Matter
RTOS Selection & Real-Time Architecture
FreeRTOS suits broad MCU support, Zephyr delivers MPU enforcement and first-class BLE/Thread stacks, ThreadX targets aerospace safety profiles, and ultra-low-power designs often demand bare-metal cooperative schedulers. A formal task analysis — period, WCET, stack depth, inter-task dependencies — precedes any implementation code.
Electronics DesignBootloader Security & Anti-Rollback
An unsigned firmware update path is a root-level attack surface — bootloaders implement a hardware-rooted chain of trust with ECDSA P-256 or Ed25519 signing, monotonic anti-rollback counters in OTP or a secure element, and dual-bank layouts validated by 10,000-iteration interrupted-update soaks. External flash devices add SHA-256 integrity check before decompression.
Embedded SecurityPower Management Firmware Architecture
Battery life is determined more by firmware behavior than hardware — missed sleep opportunities and peripheral bus leakage drain a well-designed battery in days. Every peripheral gets an explicit power state machine; per-state current budgets are validated with automated profiling (Keysight N6705C or Nordic PPK2 at 100 kHz) against target calculations.
RF & Wireless Engineering
From bare-metal drivers to full RTOS applications — firmware built to survive the field.
Firmware Across Ankh's Product Range
Every hardware product requires firmware, and our embedded engineering practice spans every product category we serve.
Wearable Electronics
Ultra-low-power BLE 5 firmware with accelerometer fusion and 10+ day battery life on 200mAh cells
View ProductMedical Devices
IEC 62304 Class B/C firmware with full software lifecycle documentation, static analysis, and traceability matrices
View ProductCold Chain Monitoring
Firmware with fail-safe sensor logging to external flash during cellular outages and tamper-detection interrupt handling
View ProductStructural Monitoring
High-rate ADC sampling with triggered capture, ring-buffer management, and compressed packetization for LoRa uplink
View ProductIndustrial Equipment Monitoring
CAN/Modbus RTU driver development, watchdog-supervised task architecture, and IEC 61508 SIL-2 compatible firmware structures
View ProductAI Vision Systems
Camera sensor bring-up (MIPI CSI-2), ISP configuration, frame buffer management, and NPU inference scheduling firmware
View ProductPOS & Kiosk Hardware
Secure bootloader with payment peripheral isolation, peripheral health monitoring, and PCI-DSS-aligned key management firmware
View ProductWireless Communication
Multi-protocol radio firmware coordinating BLE, 802.15.4, and sub-GHz with dynamic channel hopping and RSSI-based link management
View ProductData Loggers
Circular flash storage with configurable sampling rates, RTC-stamped records, and USB Mass Storage enumeration for PC retrieval
View ProductRuggedized Devices
Watchdog-layered firmware with hardware fault trap handlers, non-volatile error logging, and graceful degraded-mode operation
View ProductSmart Home Automation
Matter/Thread commissioning firmware, OTA update integration with Apple/Google ecosystems, and mesh network join/rejoin state machines
View ProductPower Monitoring
High-precision ADC for energy metering with phase-compensated sampling, harmonic analysis, and calibration coefficients stored in flash
View ProductArchitecture Before Code — Every Time
Most firmware problems are architecture problems discovered too late. A formal architecture document — memory maps, RTOS task tables, interrupt priorities, peripheral ownership — reviewed before any implementation code is written, doubling as the IEC 62304/DO-178C Software Architecture Description for certified products.
Test Infrastructure as a First-Class Deliverable
Every project ships a pytest suite exercising real hardware with a CI configuration that runs it on every commit — future changes validate in hours, not days of manual bench testing.
Certification Experience That Cuts Timeline
Navigating IEC 62304, DO-178C, or IEC 61508 for the first time adds months to a program. Our engineers have shipped certified firmware and configure your SDLC toolchain — Jama, Jira, Polarion — to capture traceability as a natural byproduct of development rather than a pre-audit sprint.
Deliverables
Firmware Architecture Document
Memory map, task/interrupt table, peripheral ownership matrix, and boot sequence diagram — satisfying the Software Architecture Description artifact for certified projects.
Source Code Repository
Clean Git repository with feature-branch history, inline Doxygen docs, onboarding guide, and MISRA-C compliance reports for safety-critical modules.
BSP & Driver Package
BSP and HAL covering all peripheral drivers, with timing margin and interrupt latency characterization from logic analyzer captures.
Bootloader & Security Package
Signed bootloader binary, key provisioning procedure, manufacturing programming scripts, and anti-rollback configuration documentation.
HIL Test Suite
Python/pytest-based HIL test suite with CI configuration, covering nominal operation, protocol edge cases, fault injection, and power cycle recovery scenarios.
OTA Update Infrastructure
OTA client firmware module, image signing scripts, staged rollout configuration, and integration documentation for your chosen device management platform.
Release Binaries & Programming Scripts
Production-signed firmware binaries, J-Link/OpenOCD programming scripts for manufacturing fixtures, and a programming verification procedure.
Certification Documentation Set
For certified products: Software Requirements Specification, Architecture Description, Unit Test Report, Integration Test Report, and Traceability Matrix ready for notified body review.
Deliverables are scoped per engagement — a rapid prototype engagement has a lighter documentation footprint than a certified medical device program.
Often Paired With Firmware Development
Electronics Design
Co-designed hardware and firmware eliminates bring-up surprises — our electronics engineers design testability in from the first schematic revision.
ExploreEmbedded Security
Secure boot, encrypted storage, and HSM integration require coordinated firmware and security architecture across the full embedded stack.
ExploreOTA Firmware Updates
A dedicated OTA engagement adds fleet management platform integration, differential update tooling, and staged rollout orchestration beyond the firmware client module.
ExploreManufacturing Readiness
Production programming procedures, golden unit qualification, and manufacturing test firmware for every board variant are part of a complete manufacturing handoff.
ExploreWork That Demonstrates the Standard
IEC 62304 Class B Firmware for Continuous Glucose Monitor
Ankh delivered IEC 62304 Class B firmware for a BLE CGM on nRF52840 — Zephyr RTOS with MPU enforcement, full Jama documentation, and a 400-test HIL suite covering BLE stability, ADC accuracy, and encrypted storage. The FDA 510(k) passed technical review with zero firmware findings.
Read the Case StudyDual-Bank OTA Bootloader for Industrial Sensor Network
Ankh designed a dual-bank layout, fit an ECDSA P-256 bootloader into 32 KB, and added bsdiff delta compression to cut payload sizes by 70% for 12,000 deployed STM32L4 nodes needing secure OTA retrofit. Across a 6-month, 47-build rollout with 1% canary staging, zero units required physical re-flashing.
Read the Case StudyReady to Build Firmware That Ships and Stays Shipped?From first bring-up to certified production release.
From a bare-metal driver this week to an 18-month IEC 62304-certified program, Ankh has the embedded depth to deliver on your MCU, your timeline, and your certification requirement.