10 Mistakes Companies Make When Porting Firmware Between MCU Families

I’ve spent years working in the layer between customer software and firmware — the middleware that has to survive MCU swaps, silicon shortages, and last-minute BOM changes. I’ve watched teams burn weeks on firmware ports that should have taken days, and I’ve done enough post-mortems to see the same mistakes repeat across companies. These aren’t theoretical. Every mistake below comes from real porting efforts I’ve seen or been called in to fix. Most involve moving between STM32, ESP32, and nRF52 — the three families that cover probably 80% of new embedded designs in 2026. ...

August 19, 2026 · 15 min · Pranav Jain