MCU & System Architecture
CPU fundamentals, MCU cores, boot process, interrupts, and driver design
Interrupts and priorities
Master interrupt service routine design, NVIC priority schemes, nested interrupts, and latency optimization for real-time embedded systems.
Boot, vector table, and clock bring-up
Understand the hardware-side boot sequence on a Cortex-M MCU: reset sources, vector table, clock tree bring-up, and peripheral initialization order.
Driver design: HAL vs bare metal
Understand HAL vs bare-metal driver design tradeoffs, abstraction layer architecture, register-level access patterns, and when to use each approach in embedded systems.
MCU cores and clocking
Understand ARM Cortex-M core families, RISC-V in embedded, clock tree architecture, PLL configuration, and power modes for optimal embedded system design.
CPU fundamentals for embedded
Understand CPU pipeline, cache coherency with DMA, memory barriers, bus architecture (AHB/APB), and memory types (SRAM, TCM, CCM) — the computer architecture concepts embedded interviewers actually test.