Written by Eli Hughes, Zephyr Contributor and Principal at Wavenumber LLC.
Modern Embedded microcontrollers are highly integrated devices with many built in peripherals, large memories, and powerful CPU cores. The Zephyr RTOS is a “batteries included” offering that combines a real-time kernel, flexible configuration/package management, build system, peripheral driver model and common utility functions. Using Zephyr can simplify a software development process to take advantage of modern device features in a collaborative team environment.
Embedded microcontrollers often incorporate highly specialized functionality that may not exist in other devices. These specialized features may not be directly portable at a hardware or software API level. One often chooses a microcontroller for specific capabilities to meet project requirements. Zephyr offers standardized methods for the most common software and IO tasks. However, it is both possible and simple to get “to the metal” to use specialized features. Developers can choose the Zephyr components that best suit their project requirements and development needs.
This new whitepaper titled, “Getting the Best of all Worlds with Zephyr RTOS: Bare Metal Hardware Access, Direct IRQ Handling and Digital Signal Processing for Cloud Connected Acoustic Machine Monitoring,” illustrates a cloud connected sensor application that combines high-performance acoustic sensing, DSP / edge processing, low power battery operation and secure cloud connectivity. Using Zephyr does not mean you have to give up any of the advantages of “bare metal” for high performance applications. In fact, you can get the best of all worlds while having a development framework that scales across projects.
You can read the complete white paper here.
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