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How to Find Unaligned Memory Access Problems on ARM MCUs

To find unaligned memory access problems on ARM microcontrollers, inspect pointer addresses, verify data type alignment requirements, examine compiler-generated instructions, and investigate processor fault registers when an exception occurs. Use a debugger to check memory addresses, stack information, and the faulting instruction. You should also inspect packed structures, communication buffers, pointer casts, DMA buffers, and data copied from external interfaces. In simple words: Unaligned memory debugging means finding situations where firmware tries to access data from an address that does not meet the required alignment rules. Introduction Imagine you are developing firmware for an ARM Cortex-M microcontroller. Your program reads sensor data from a communication buffer. Everything works correctly during initial testing. But after receiving a particular packet, the microcontroller suddenly enters a HardFault handler. You restart the board, and the problem disappears temporarily. W...
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