So now that you know who I am and what makes me tick, let me share some of my experience with Renesas and Synergy. What first excited me about the opportunity to work on Synergy with the Renesas IoT BU was the company’s heavy investment and commitment to provide a comprehensive, integrated platform to bring complex designs to market faster. As a developer, I can both see the need and feel the pain for this type of solution. I’ve been impressed with the vision and commitment of the IoT BU team since I first interviewed with company in mid-2014. Their passion is contagious and their mission is singular. Ali, Peter, Brian, Dave, Mark, Kurt and the gang want to make customers more productive and they see the Synergy product as a means for their customers to make something better. The key value proposition of Synergy is that it is a platform not a collection of random building blocks. Don't get me wrong, as a developer I appreciate great building blocks. As a budding technology geek, I couldn’t wait to buy a kit to build my first computer from “scratch." It was fun piecing together the puzzle and troubleshooting the construction challenges along the way. Building blocks are great for a hobbyist or an engineer implementing a routine development project. But building blocks also have their limitations – especially if they are not designed to work together. Building Blocks are Complex One of the things that is great about building blocks is they give me a plethora of choices. The bad thing about building blocks? I have a plethora of choices! It’s kind of like going into a restaurant with a thousand menu items. Where do I start? How do I filter through the menu so I’m not wasting a ton of time trying to make a decision so I can order already? Building Blocks are Error-Prone Building blocks can also be risky. They are also difficult to use because you need to understand how they all fit together, at a detail level. Just one incorrect input or output and wham – you’ve created an error that might not show up until well down the road (hopefully not when you’re trying to close a big customer deal!). Building Blocks Require a Big Learning Curve I can’t waste time learning how to design drivers and middleware that are outside my areas of expertise. The last thing I want to do is get into the nuts and bolts of integrating with an RTOS or connecting to the cloud. I need to be able to focus on what makes me valuable to my company – writing differentiated application code and looking for new ways to ensure my motor control or monitoring app stands out from the crowd. One Broken Building Block Can Cause Missed Deadlines Back in the days when I had lots of free time on my hands, I could focus on each building block, one at a time. I don’t have that luxury any more. If one building block doesn’t work properly, I’m in trouble. My boss expects me to get my work done on a tight production schedule so that we can monetize the end product sooner. My job is at risk if I miss my deadlines. Be Smart – Use an Integrated Platform Let’s face it, it’s dumb to try to tackle important development projects using a building block kludge. Imagine your parents giving you a handful of Legos, a dozen Tinker Toys, a couple of Lincoln Logs, a battery and a plastic hammer as a child. How would you feel if they expected you to create something useful with those random building blocks? I don’t know about you, but I’m a pro now. I need a faster, more comprehensive and reliable solution. Give me a complete and integrated development environment. With Synergy, Renesas provides complete platform that does most of the heavy lifting for me. The Synergy Application Framework allows me to program at a higher level of abstraction, so I don’t have to write base code to use network connection, power management, security and other common services. For example, using the Audio Playback Framework, I can execute high-level commands like open, start, stop and play without having to connect several audio blocks by hand. Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) drivers are also provided to save me a ton of time. No need for a deep study of the Synergy MCU registers. The low-level drivers are already there for all peripherals and systems services. Everything is optimized, integrated, pre-tested and automatically updatable. With Synergy, Renesas provides me with a one-stop shop, so I can focus on creating, innovating and producing value for my company faster. Next time I’ll tell you how I jump-started my development journey using Synergy Xplorer. Professor_IoT
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