Nathan Jones

About Me

I am an educator, embedded systems engineer, 15-year US Army Veteran, and frequent contributor to Embedded Related and DigiKey. I love building neat electronic devices and then teaching folks how they work! I've taught at West Point and have spoken at numerous conferences.
Skills

Assembly C CircuitPython MicroPython Python
Interests

555 Timer Arduino Assembly C CircuitPython CNC Milling FPGA Microcontrollers MicroPython Oscilloscope Programmers RISC-V
LinkedIn
GitHub

Projects

Blogs

BLOG

How Hardware Gets Hacked (Part 3): Adopting the Attacker Mindset

Explore how attackers gather device info, map inputs, and uncover vulnerabilities using reconnaissance in embedded hardware security.

BLOG

How Hardware Gets Hacked (Part 2): On-boarding

By Nathan Jones

Explore a hardware security workflow using firmware builds, simulation tools, serial commands, and automated tests for microcontroller systems.

Image of The Best MCU Peripheral You've Never Heard Of

BLOG

504

The Best MCU Peripheral You've Never Heard Of

By Nathan Jones

Learn how Microchip’s CLB, CLC, and AVR CCL peripherals enable gate-level functions without external hardware.

Image of How Hardware Gets Hacked (Part 1)

BLOG

357

How Hardware Gets Hacked (Part 1)

By Nathan Jones

Learn how embedded systems face physical attacks, key fob risks, competition challenges, and common weaknesses in hardware security.

Image of All Your Bytes Are Belong to Us

BLOG

215

All Your Bytes Are Belong to Us

By Nathan Jones

High-level roadmap for hardware security awareness: threat models, attack complexity, and where to start defending your design.

Tutorials See All

TUTORIAL

Thread-safe printf Debugging - Part 2

By Nathan Jones

Learn how to make printf and snprintf safe for ISRs and RTOS threads by preventing race conditions using interrupts, mutexes, and atomics.

TUTORIAL

Thread-safe printf Debugging - Part 1

By Nathan Jones

Learn methods to strengthen embedded debug workflows with atomic checks, mutex tools, and race-free UART handling.

TUTORIAL

Smaller printf Debugging

By Nathan Jones

A technical analysis of printf performance, memory trade-offs, and the benefits of small-footprint alternatives for optimizing embedded C projects.

TUTORIAL

Faster printf Debugging (Part 3)

By Nathan Jones

Learn serialization and COBS framing to send debug logs at lightning speed from STM32 boards. Compare MessagePack, FlatBuffers, & bitproto for fast debug output.

Image of Faster printf Debugging (Part 2)

TUTORIAL

138

Faster printf Debugging (Part 2)

By Nathan Jones

Learn non-blocking UART and USB tricks to slash printf debug times on STM32 boards. Speed up embedded logging with interrupts, DMA, and smart buffering.