Benjamin Cabé Nose Zephyr

The Amp Hour · 11 Dec 2023 · 1h 06m · Episode 653

What this episode covers

Benjamin Cabé, Developer Advocate for the Zephyr Project, explains that Zephyr is an open-source RTOS and ecosystem that provides hardware abstraction, device trees, and subsystems to simplify embedded development. He highlights how major vendors like STMicroelectronics, NXP, and Espressif integrate with Zephyr, allowing developers to swap silicon without rewriting application code, a feature that proved crucial during recent silicon shortages. Cabé also shares his personal project, an 'artificial nose' for sourdough monitoring, which he migrated from Arduino to Zephyr to leverage its multitasking, state machines, and simulation tools like Renode.

Mentioned

Companies
STMicroelectronics, NXP, Espressif, Bosch
Products
M5Stack, BME280
Chips
ESP32
Tools
Renode, QEMU
Also
Zephyr Project, Zephyr RTOS, Arduino, TensorFlow Lite, Edge Impulse

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • The Pragmatic Embedded Podcast · 45m

    Zephyr with Luka Mustafa

    Luka Mustafa, founder and CEO of Irnas Product Development, explains how Zephyr RTOS, a Linux Foundation-backed project, enables hardware-agnostic embedded development by abstracting low-level details through device trees and a comprehensive ecosystem. He highlights the dramatic reduction in porting time—moving Bluetooth code between chip architectures in an hour versus months—and the ability to run native POSIX simulations on Linux for faster development. Mustafa also details Zephyr's testing framework, Twister, and its cultural impact, noting the steep learning curve for electrical engineers while emphasizing the long-term benefits of code reuse and reduced maintenance overhead. The discussion covers resource constraints, safety-critical certification processes, and specific scenarios where simpler solutions like Arduino are preferable to an RTOS.

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 05m

    479: Make Your Voice Heard

    Carles Cufí, an open source software engineer at Nordic Semiconductor, discusses the company's strategic shift to Zephyr and the development of the nRF Connect SDK. He explains the architectural decisions behind maintaining a downstream SDK, including the use of binary blobs and proprietary licensing, to balance open-source collaboration with commercial control. Cufí also provides guidance for developers on navigating Zephyr's steep learning curve, highlighting resources like the Memfault 'Practical Zephyr' series, Nordic's DevAcademy, and the community Discord server.

  • Coredump Sessions · 59m

    #009: Zephyr’s Meteoric Rise and What It Means for the Future of Embedded

    Kate Stewart, VP of Dependable Embedded Systems at the Linux Foundation, explains how Zephyr RTOS evolved from Intel’s Wind River roots into a multi-vendor open-source project with a governance model designed to prevent corporate capture. She details Zephyr’s technical differentiators, including its Linux-inspired Kconfig and device tree, the pragmatic reuse of MCUboot, and the introduction of 5-year Long-Term Support (LTS) releases to meet regulatory demands like the EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). The conversation covers Zephyr’s safety certification journey, its transparent CVE tracking, and its growing adoption by silicon vendors like Nordic and Arduino, as well as its expanding support for RISC-V and Rust.

  • Embedded.fm · 1h 09m

    475: Stuffed Animal or Colleague

    Elecia White and Christopher White discuss their experiences with the Zephyr RTOS, highlighting its powerful ecosystem but steep learning curve, particularly regarding the complex build system, Kconfig, and device tree (DTS) configurations. They share specific debugging stories, including a hardware noise issue caused by a jumper cable and a Zephyr driver integration problem where a missing ST module caused build failures. The conversation also covers debugging techniques like rubber-ducking, the limitations of AI tools for embedded code, and career reflections on becoming a senior engineer.

  • The Electromaker Show · 42m

    Eli Hughes' Nordic and i.MX powered Guitar, Pico Operating System, WiFi over LoRaWAN and more!

    Eli Hughes, a full-stack embedded engineer and educator, discusses his 'Super Monkey' guitar active pickguard project, which uses an NXP i.MX RT685 processor for DSP and a Nordic nRF7002 Wi-Fi chip for cloud data upload. He explains the technical rationale for choosing Zephyr OS for its standardized, reusable software stack and emphasizes the importance of a 'beginner's mindset' and rigorous hardware bring-up procedures. The episode also covers news items including the Waveshare BG95-M3 Zero cellular SBC, the Raspberry Pi M.2 HAT+, and Breadboard OS for the Pi Pico.

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by The Amp Hour. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.