Written by Brendon Slade, Director MCU Ecosystem, NXP Semiconductors
There are many reasons why developers should choose Zephyr RTOS. Beyond the features and security capabilities, there are some aspects, such as the way project configuration borrows concepts from Linux®, that can initially seem intimidating to MCU developers who are used to a simpler, more traditional RTOS-based coding approach.
However, with Zephyr, the learning curve is not as steep as one might think. The benefits of code portability and middleware reuse are considerable. Significant time savings can be achieved with documentation and automated testing. Help is also close at hand for adoption of Zephyr by way of a vibrant community of engineers willing to help with access to excellent documentation.
You can hear about the experiences of a seasoned embedded systems expert using Zephyr for the first time, including more details about those benefits, in our recent webinar with Eli Hughes: “Should I care about Zephyr?” In this enlightening talk, Eli shares his personal experiences with using Zephyr OS, including comparing code porting with traditional methods.
For those readers who are familiar with the MCUXpresso suite of software and development tools, the question in your minds may be, “how does this relate?” NXP uses the MCUXpresso SDK drivers as the basis for our Zephyr platform support, so all of the investment in this high-quality software is leveraged effectively and customers wishing to port to other platforms can do the same – as can be seen from code in the Zephyr repository. MCUXpresso IDE can also be used to debug Zephyr OS projects and you can learn how to do this using the SEGGER J-link probes in this tutorial.
Read more about NXP’s history with Zephyr and what’s next here: https://www.nxp.com/company/blog/zephyr-os-lts-2-release-adds-full-platform-support-for-i-mx-rt600-crossover-mcus:BL-ZEPHYR-OS-LTS-2-RELEASE.
More resources:
- Learn more about NXP’s supported platforms: www.nxp.com/zephyr.
- Join us for a closer look at Zephyr OS with this series of on-demand sessions: www.nxp.com/zephyrseries
- Learn more and download the Zephyr OS LTS 2 release today: https://www.zephyrproject.org/developer-resources/#current-release
- Log in to Zephyr’s Discord community and connect with us, ask questions and more: https://chat.zephyrproject.org/
