The project has seen record-breaking growth since it launched in 2015. In fact, in a recent Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) blog that monitors the trends and technologies that resonate with developers and end users, Zephyr was highlighted as the fourth most active Linux Foundation project and in the top 30 of all open source projects.
The Long Term Support (LTS) release is a great example of this momentem as there were more than 650 unique contributors, including an all-time record of 210 first timers. Zephyr RTOS supports over 700 boards running embedded microcontrollers from Arm and RISC-V to Tensilica, NIOS, ARC and x86 as single and multicore systems.
The LTS Release
The Zephyr 3.7 release is the next LTS version of the project, providing product makers with a stable foundation for building future-proof embedded connected products. This new release addresses the increasing complexity of today's microcontrollers and embedded devices by providing a new way to describe hardware capabilities. Zephyr 3.7 also introduces notable improvements to its networking stack, such as a new HTTP/2 server library and support for IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol (PTP). The project has also been continuously working on making development easier, from allowing access to the Zephyr shell over Bluetooth to allowing developers to bootstrap an LLEXT development environment in minutes. More technical details can be found on the Zephyr blog. Or, join the Tech Talk on August 1 at 6 am PDT to learn more about Zephyr 3.7 from release managers and maintainers.
Over 40 security vulnerabilities have been fixed since the last LTS release 2 years ago, and Zephyr 3.7 LTS will be maintained until January 2027. Product makers are encouraged to subscribe to the project's Vulnerability Alert Registry to stay informed about security vulnerabilities and updates.
The LTS improvements enable more products to leverage Zephyr. Recent products featured on the Zephyr Product Page include:
- The Okrånglig Gateway is a Power-over-Ethernet driven, streamlined Linux SBC that connects IoT devices to the cloud. With Nordic Semiconductor's nRF52833 co-CPU running Zephyr RTOS, it provides a 2.4 GHz radio, as well as NFC tag emulation for provisioning and configuration.
- Grid Pad 13 is a speech generating device that can be used with every type of alternative access, including eye gaze. It is specifically designed for people diagnosed with MND / ALS, Cerebral Palsy, brain injury and other conditions that affect speech and mobility.
- SenseCAP T1000-S LoRaWAN Tracker is a compact card-size, open source device with an IP65 rating for precise location tracking. It's equipped with temperature, light, and motion sensors, making it ideal for a variety of applications for location and status monitoring.
A Growing Community
Zephyr RTOS has a growing set of software libraries that can be used across various applications and industry sectors such as Industrial IoT, wearables, machine learning and more. It is built with an emphasis on broad chipset support, security, dependability, long-term support releases and a growing open source ecosystem.
CARIAD is the automotive software company of the Volkswagen Group with the mission to create and deliver leading digital technology for the Group´s cars. Powerful software architectures enable completely new customer experiences in the vehicles of Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche. CARIAD's driver assistance systems, charging technology, unified infotainment platform, software functions for linking powertrains and chassis as well as digital services make automotive mobility safer and more comfortable. Founded in 2020, CARIAD today consists of 6,000 employees worldwide from over 90 nationalities.
CARIAD, Zephyr's first automotive member company, joins other Platinum members including Analog Devices, Antmicro, Baumer, Google, Intel, Meta, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, Oticon, Qualcomm Innovation Center and ZEISS. Thomas Fleischmann, Manager Competence Center Embedded Development at Cariad, will join the Governing Board.
"We are excited to join the Zephyr Project and contribute to its ongoing success as a feature-rich and widely-used open source platform. Our development team is eager to collaborate with the global Zephyr community and is looking forward to contributing to the project with a specific focus on safety requirements for use in the automotive sector," said Sanjay Lal, Chief Software Officer at CARIAD.
Alif Semiconductor and Arm join Ac6, Arduino, AVSystem, Baumer, BayLibre, Blues, Golioth, Infineon, IRNAS, Laird Connectivity, Linaro, Memfault, Percepio, Renesas Electronics, Silicon Labs, Sternum, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, Texas Instruments and Wind River as Silver members.
Alif Semiconductor is the industry-leading supplier of next-generation secure AI/ML-enabled 32-bit microcontrollers. Since 2019, Alif's expanding offering of microcontrollers and fusion processors has been revolutionizing the way developers can create broad, scalable, and connected AI-enabled embedded applications that are genuinely power efficient.
"Alif Semiconductor is excited to join the Zephyr community," said Henrik Flodell, Senior. Product Marketing Director at Alif Semiconductor. "Software enablement is key to unlock the full potential of microprocessor technology for developers, and it is clear from the feedback we get from our customers that Zephyr's approach for delivering this has them very excited as well."
Arm designs the foundational compute platforms for a vast partner ecosystem, including semiconductor companies, the world's largest OEMs, and innovative start-ups.
"The performance, efficiency and pervasiveness of Arm technology makes it the platform of choice for a vast ecosystem of developers deploying embedded applications ranging from automotive to edge AI and beyond," said Andrew Wafaa, senior director, Software Communities at Arm. "Open source initiatives such as Zephyr are hugely valuable for the Arm ecosystem and we are pleased to be joining the project to further enable millions of developers to innovate and scale across a range of applications on Arm."
Explore Zephyr RTOS up close:
Zephyr ambassadors will be on-site at
Open Source Summit Europe in Vienna, Austria, on September 16-18 to present best practices, applications, products based on the RTOS and more. Check out the schedule
here. Additionally, the Zephyr Project will host a
workshop on Thursday, September 19 for developers considering Zephyr in embedded products. Sponsored by Infineon, the hands-on portion of the session will feature the building of two connected applications using Infineon's AIROC™ CYW20829 Bluetooth LE MCU Evaluation Kit. To register for Zephyr Workshop, add it to your
Open Source Summit Europe registration .
