The foundations – understanding the embedded build process

The journey from high-level source code in embedded firmware development to an executable binary image is intricate and multilayered. This process is commonly referred to as the firmware build process and involves several critical stages – pre-processing, compilation, assembly, linking, and locating. Each of these stages plays an important role in transforming human-readable code into machine-executable instructions. Figure 3.1 shows the entire build process and the tools involved at each stage of the process.

Figure 3.1: The build process, detailing the input and output files for each stage and the specific tools used

Let’s examine the stages.

The pre-processing stage

Pre-processing is the initial stage in the firmware build process. In this stage, the source code undergoes a series of transformations to prepare it for compilation. Typically, source files in embedded...