Firmware development

Firmware written against the real board.

Bare-metal and RTOS firmware for STM32, Nordic nRF, NXP, and TI microcontrollers, developed in McKinney by the same team that designs the board and brings it up. Drivers, protocol stacks, bootloaders, and field updates, tested on the hardware, not only on a dev kit.

What we build
main.c01// NovaHeap boot sequence02int main(void) {03clock_init();04can_j1939_start(BUS_1);05ble_mesh_join(NET_KEY);06if (secure_boot_verify()) {07rtos_start();08}09}MCUFLASHINGVERIFIED

Secure firmware

A chain of trust, designed in from the first commit.

The EU Cyber Resilience Act makes secure-by-design, vulnerability handling, and security updates a legal requirement for connected products sold in the EU, with reporting duties from September 2026 and full obligations from December 2027. Boards shipping now will still be in the field then. We put the chain of trust into the firmware architecture instead of adding it at the end.

ROM BOOTLOADERImmutableRoot key in OTPverifyBOOTLOADERVerifies app signatureDecrypts update imageverifyAPPLICATIONRuns only if verifiedAnti-rollback versionEach stage checks the signature of the next before handing over control.
ROM BOOTLOADERImmutableRoot key in OTPverifyBOOTLOADERVerifies app signatureDecrypts update imageverifyAPPLICATIONRuns only if verifiedAnti-rollback version

Secure boot

An immutable first stage verifies a signed bootloader, which verifies the application. Nothing unsigned runs, and a bad image cannot brick the board.

  • MCUboot
  • Signed images
  • Rollback protection

Signed OTA updates

A/B image slots, signature and version checks before swap, and a confirm-or-revert step so a failed update falls back to the last good image.

  • A/B slots
  • Anti-rollback
  • Confirm or revert

Hardware root of trust

Keys kept in the MCU's protected storage or a secure element, debug access locked, and readout protection set before the product ships.

  • TrustZone-M
  • Secure element
  • Debug lock

Key provisioning at assembly

Per-device keys and certificates loaded during assembly at our facility in India, so each unit arrives identified and locked before it ships.

  • Per-device keys
  • Certificates
  • Locked at the line

NoteNovaHeap implements the technical measures. Conformity assessment, technical documentation, and the legal obligations under the Cyber Resilience Act remain with the product manufacturer. We are engineers, not a certification body or legal counsel.

What we build

Eleven kinds of firmware work we take on.

Each card is a category we have tooling and reference code for. If your project sits between two of them, that is normal.

Microcontroller platforms

Bare-metal and RTOS firmware on STM32, Nordic nRF, NXP, and TI Cortex-M parts.

  • STM32
  • nRF
  • NXP
  • TI
  • Cortex-M

RTOS and bare-metal

Zephyr, FreeRTOS, or a disciplined superloop, chosen for the product rather than by habit.

  • Zephyr
  • FreeRTOS
  • Bare-metal

Automotive and vehicle networks

CAN, CAN FD, SAE J1939, and LIN nodes, including diagnostics and bootloading over the bus.

  • CAN / CAN FD
  • J1939
  • LIN

Industrial protocols

Modbus RTU and TCP devices, RS-485 links, and sensor or actuator nodes for control systems.

  • Modbus RTU / TCP
  • RS-485
  • Ethernet

Wireless

Bluetooth LE and BLE Mesh, Thread, Matter, and Zigbee on Nordic and NXP radios.

  • BLE / BLE Mesh
  • Thread
  • Matter
  • Zigbee

Bootloaders and secure boot

Custom and MCUboot-based bootloaders with signed images, dual banks, and rollback protection.

  • MCUboot
  • Dual bank
  • Signed images

OTA updates

Field updates over BLE, cellular, or Ethernet with A/B slots and a safe fallback.

  • A/B slots
  • BLE DFU
  • Fallback

Drivers and signal chains

Peripheral drivers, ADC front ends, DMA pipelines, and timing-critical sampling.

  • ADC / DAC
  • DMA
  • SPI / I2C / UART

Motor and power control

BLDC and stepper control loops, PWM generation, and protection logic for power stages.

  • BLDC
  • Stepper
  • PWM

LCD drivers and display integration

Display drivers for SPI, parallel RGB, and MIPI-DSI panels, with LVGL graphics and touch input.

  • LVGL
  • SPI / RGB / MIPI-DSI
  • Touch

Low power

Sleep scheduling, wake sources, and current budgets measured on the bench.

  • Sleep modes
  • Current budget
  • Profiling

Talk to an engineer

Tell us the MCU, the interfaces, and what the product has to do. We will say what we would build, what we would reuse, and what we would leave out.

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