System Engineering Intern – Texas Instruments

Project Overview

During my internship in the Systems Engineering and Marketing (SEM) team, I was responsible for developing and validating PRU(Programmable Real-Time Unit) firmware for the Simple Open Real-Time Ethernet Gigabit (SORTE_G). SORTE_G is an industrial Ethernet protocol from Texas Instruments that supports a 4-µs cycle time. My work focused on enhancing data throughput and porting real-time protocols to next-generation hardware

  • Advanced Memory Optimization (xfer2vbus):
    • Updated firmware to reduce latency and improve deterministic performance during data handling
    • Replaced the LBCO method to handle the incoming payload with the XFR command, which uses a different data bus to load and store PRU registers for high speed with wide- burst data transfers
  • Indudstrial Protocol Porting(SORTE_G):
    • Successfully ported the SORTE_G protocol from AM243x LaunchPad to AM64x EVM
    • Adapted the firmware to support 100BASE-T1(Single Pair Ethernet) for industrial and automotive networking
  • Embedded World 2024 Exhibition:
    • Collaborated with Systems Engineers to design and set up a 6-axis robotic demo
  • Customer Support and Firmware Validation:
    • Developed custom PRU functions as per customer requirements to enable precise timestamping for incoming and outgoing Ethernet frames.
    • Conducted tests and validation using Wireshark and Profishark to verify protocol timing and frame integrity
  • Documentation and Version control:
    • Created technical overviews and architectural diagrams using Draw.io to visualize the internal data flow of the real-time Ethernet stack.
    • Maintained and updated project documentation in Confluence, ensuring that firmware logic and hardware configurations were clearly documented for both internal teams and future customer support.
    • Translated customer requirements into clear technical implementation tasks and validation plans
    • Managed the lifecycle of verified and tested code using Git, ensuring version control integrity for the SORTE_G protocol and custom PRU firmware.
    • Followed professional software development workflows, including committing stable builds after validation with Wireshark and Code Composer Studio