Embedded Software and Hardware Architecture is a first dive into understanding embedded architectures and writing software to manipulate this hardware. You will gain experience writing low-level firmware to directly interface hardware with highly efficient, readable and portable design practices. We will now transition from the Host Linux Machine where we built and ran code in a simulated environment to an Integrated Development Environment where you will build and install code directly on your ARM Cortex-M4 Microcontroller. Course assignments include writing firmware to interact and configure both the underlying ARM architecture and the MSP432 microcontroller platform. The course concludes with a project where you will develop a circular buffer data structure. In this course you will need the Texas Instruments LaunchPad with the MSP432 microcontroller in order to complete the assignments. Later courses of the Specialization will continue to use this hardware tool to develop even more exciting firmware.