zephyr News - Page 3 of 6 - CNX Software

February 2, 2022March 7, 2024 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Golioth IoT development platform offers Zephyr SDK, support for nRF9160, ESP32, and over 100 other platforms

There are already plenty of IoT development platforms, but here’s another one with Golioth that relies on a Zephyr SDK, “first-tier” support for Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160 (cellular) and Espressif Systems ESP32-C3 (WiFi), as well as a QEMU-based simulator for easy testing. The use of an open-source Zephyr SDK even enables them to support over 100+ hardware components, and the company, also called Golioth, says their platform scales from one device for evaluation to one million devices during deployment, thanks notably to a free Dev Tier account to get started at no cost. Some of the other highlights of Golioth include: “Secure by Default” communication over efficient protocols like CoAP and soon MQTT Access to Device Services like Software updates that include secure boot and firmware management Real-time NoSQL database (LightDB) that can be useful for creating Digital Twins and synchronization Time-series database (LightDB Stream) for storing and querying sensor data […]

January 28, 2022May 29, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 5 Comments

The Eclipse Oniro Project aims to deliver consumer & IoT software that works across multiple platforms

Several of the embedded talks at FOSDEM 2022 mention the “Eclipse Oniro Project”. I had never heard about that project from the Eclipse Foundation, so let’s see how they describe it: Oniro is an Eclipse Foundation project focused on the development of a distributed open source operating system for consumer devices, regardless of the brand, model, make. Oniro is a compatible implementation for the global market of OpenHarmony, an open source operating system specified and hosted by the OpenAtom Foundation. Designed with modularity in mind, Oniro offers greater levels of flexibility and application portability across the broad spectrum of consumer and IoT devices — from tiny embedded sensors and actuators, to feature rich smart appliances and mobile companions. As a distributed and reusable collection of open source building blocks, Oniro enables compatibility with other open source technologies and ecosystems. Through close collaboration with projects and foundations such as OpenHarmony from […]

January 26, 2022September 23, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

FOSDEM 2022 schedule with embedded Linux, IoT, automotive… sessions

While typically taking place in Brussels, Belgium, FOSDEM 2022 will take place online just like FOSDEM 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions. The good news is that it means anybody can attend it live from anywhere in the world, and makes it more like “FOSDIM”, replacing European with International, in “Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting”. FOSDEM 2022 will take place on February 5-6 with 637 speakers, 718 events, and 103 tracks. I’ve made my own little virtual schedule below mostly with sessions from the Embedded, Mobile and Automotive devroom, but also other devrooms including “Computer Aided Modeling and Design”, “FOSS on Mobile Devices”, “Libre-Open VLSI and FPGA”, and others. Saturday, February 5, 2022 12:30 – 13:00 – Five mysteries in Embedded Linux by Josef Holzmayr Once you start out in embedded Linux, there is a lot to do. Some things are obvious, some less so. First and foremost, […]

October 31, 2021November 1, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 4 Comments

Status of Zephyr and NuttX RTOS support for ESP32

Espressif has recently announced that both Zephyr and NuttX open-source real-time operating systems had gotten official support for the ESP32 series of WiSoCs. It’s been a long time in the making, and when I first tried the community developer port of Zephyr OS on ESP32 in 2018 it did not work well at all, and I could not even make the blink LED sample work on Wemos Lolin32 board, and the WiFi sample would not even build. But time has passed, Espressif Systems started to officially work on Zephyr in 2020, and now I/Os, WiFi, and some other features work on Zephyr and NuttX RTOSes. Zephyr on ESP32 We first wrote about the Zephyr Project in 2016 describing the OS as follows: Zephyr Project is a lightweight real-time operating system (RTOS) designed for IoT applications and comprised of a microkernel for lower priority tasks, as well as a nanokernel to […]

August 6, 2021August 6, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

The RISC-V Platform Specification aims to ensure RISC-V hardware and software compatibility

The RISC-V platform specification aims to define a set of rules to make sure operating systems like Linux or the Zephyr Project can boot properly on all RISC-V hardware compliant with the specs. If you’ve ever worked with the Arm Linux kernel over ten years ago, you may remember board files, which were replaced by device tree bindings, and eventually, Arm defined several standards culminating with Arm SystemReady certifications allowing compliant Arm platforms to boot off-the-shelf OS images like in the x86 world. While we are probably a long way from a “RISC-V SystemReady” platform certification program, the RISC-V platform specification is currently being worked on to define requirements for two types of platforms with optional extensions: OS-A Platform: This specifies a rich-OS platform for Linux/FreeBSD/Windows…flavors that run on enterprise and embedded class application processors. Current extension: Server Extension M Platform – This specifies an RTOS platform for bare-metal applications […]

March 16, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

Sparkfun Thing Plus – Quicklogic EOS S3 Arm eFPGA board launched in Crowd Supply

SparkFun Electronics is a well-known electronics retailer that usually sells its in-house developed or third-party boards through its own online store. But this time around, the company decided to launch “Sparkfun Thing Plus – Quicklogic EOS S3” through Crowd Supply crowdfunding platform. The board is based on QuickFeather board designed with the same Quicklogic EOS S3 Arm Cortex-M4 plus embedded FPGA SoC, but follows Sparkfun’s Thing Plus form factor with a Qwiic connector and a different mix of sensors. Sparkfun Thing Plus – Quicklogic EOS S3 (QTPLUS-1.0) board specifications: SoC – QuickLogic EOS S3 MCU + eFPGA SoC with Arm Cortex-M4F Microcontroller up to 80 MHz, up to 512 Kb SRAM, and an embedded FPGA (eFPGA) with 2400 effective logic cells, 64 Kb RAM Storage – 16 Mbit SPI NOR flash (GigaDevice GD25Q16CEIGR) Sensors STMicro LIS2DH12TR accelerometer Digital pulse density modulation (PDM) microphone with Wake-on-Sound (WoS) feature: Vesper VM3011-U1 Expansion […]

November 15, 2020November 19, 2020 by Abhishek Jadhav - 3 Comments

LoRa & LoRaWAN support in Zephyr OS

The story of LoRa began in 2009 when Cycleo, a French company, invented LoRa. LoRa (Long Range) support for Zephyr OS goes back to December 2019. Since then, there has been a huge interest among the community to extend their support for it. More recently, LoRaWAN (low-power wide-area network) support was added to Zephyr OS. This will provide true networking support to Zephyr OS over LoRa. It operates in licensed free Sub Gigahertz frequencies (865 MHz-India, 868 MHz-Europe, etc…). It makes the perfect choice for low data rates and long-range applications. What is LoRaWAN? LoRaWAN is a MAC layer that sits on top of the LoRa. According to the OSI model, LoRaWAN is the MAC (media access control) layer while LoRa is the PHY (physical) layer. LoRa protocol is closed, meaning it is proprietary to Semtech, while LoRaWAN specifications are open to the public. The reference implementation is available at […]

August 5, 2020 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments

nRF9160 Feather LTE IoT and GPS Board Launched for $99

Nordic Semi nRF9160 is a system-in-package part of nRF91 series offering NB-IoT and eMTC (LTE-M) IoT connectivity, as well as assisted GPS. The package is now accessible on a board following Adafruit Feather form factor. Made by Circuit Dojo (Jared Wolff), nRF9160 Feather board supports both CAT M1 LTE and NB-IoT, can be powered by a USB power adapter or a LiPo battery and runs Zephyr OS via the nRF Connect SDK. nRF9160 Feather specifications: SiP – Nordic Semiconductor nRF9160-SICA LTE-M/NB-IoT/GPS SIP with Arm Cortex-M33 MCU, 1024 KB flash, 256 KB SRAM Storage – Onboard 4MB NOR flash (note: upgraded from initial 2MB) Cellular Connectivity – LTE Cat-M1 (eMTC) and LTE NB1/NB2 (NB-IoT) plus 4FF SIM card slot, and u.FL connector for an external antenna GNSS – Built-in assisted GPS support plus u.FL connector for an external antenna Expansion – Feather I/Os (12+16 through holes) with digital and analog I/Os, […]