The Zephyr Project celebrates its 10th anniversary—a decade of open collaboration that transformed how embedded and IoT devices are built. What started as a small real-time operating system (RTOS) has become a trusted platform used for products across industrial, consumer and smart-home markets.
From day one, Zephyr was designed to be different: open source, vendor-neutral and built by a global community. That vision is why companies like NXP Semiconductors chose to invest early on to help shape the project.
NXP believes innovation can move faster in the open. As embedded systems become more connected and complex, developers need a platform that is flexible, secure and not locked to a single vendor, and Zephyr delivers exactly that.
Rather than maintaining isolated software stacks for different product families, NXP saw Zephyr as a way to establish a shared software foundation across its portfolio—one that customers could rely on throughout long product lifecycles while adapting to new requirements.
By supporting Zephyr, NXP is able to offer a modern and scalable RTOS integrating with its microcontrollers and processors, This helps reduce fragmentation in the embedded world by converging on a common, open platform instead of managing multiple RTOSes, vendor-specific software development kits (SDKs) and incompatible workflows, accelerating time-to-market through reusable application software and standardized development flows and building security and connectivity on a common foundation.
The result is a broader ecosystem for developers, where contributions from many companies combine to create something far more powerful than any single organization could achieve alone. Explore Zephyr OS support on NXP platforms built through contributions from NXP, customers and the open‑source community. Stay up to date with supported boards , release cycles and source code from the Zephyr Project.
When the Zephyr Project was launched under the Linux Foundation, NXP joined as a platinum founding member to help create a neutral, community-driven alternative to proprietary RTOS solutions.
At the time, the embedded industry was highly fragmented. Developers were forced to choose between closed platforms, limited portability, or custom in-house solutions. NXP and the other founding members recognized this as an opportunity to change that trajectory by pooling resources around a single open platform.
The goal was to:
That decision helped Zephyr grow into one of the most widely supported embedded operating systems today.
Developers choose Zephyr because it solves real problems. It is lightweight and efficient, making it well suited for resource-constrained devices with tight memory and power budgets, while its modular design allows teams to scale their systems over time. Zephyr also provides broad hardware support—running across Arm®, RISC-V and other architectures with hundreds of supported boards—enabling code reuse as hardware platforms change.
Security is another cornerstone of the platform. With features such as secure boot, cryptographic services and a strong emphasis on safe development practices, Zephyr helps teams build connected devices that are secure from the start.
A key advantage is Zephyr’s broad portfolio of pre-integrated middleware. Networking stacks, Bluetooth, USB, device management, file systems and security services are designed to work together out of the box, reducing integration effort and allowing developers to focus on application differentiation instead of stitching components together.
Equally important, Zephyr thrives because of its open-source ecosystem. A global community contributes drivers, protocols, middleware, and development tools that reduce duplication of effort and accelerate innovation across the industry.
For teams building the next generation of connected products, Zephyr offers a solid and future-proof foundation.
10 years in, Zephyr is more than an operating system—it is a platform for long-term innovation. With continued support from NXP and the wider community, it will continue to intelligent, safer and more connected devices. The first decade proved what open collaboration can achieve. The next decade will be even more exciting.
Ready to build with Zephyr on NXP hardware? NXP boards are supported upstream with ready-to-run samples, drivers, and documentation to get you from power-on to running code fast. Download Zephyr, grab an NXP board and start building.
Iuliana is a Software Engineer at NXP, working primarily on Zephyr, along with Sound Open Firmware and Linux Audio Subsystems. She’s passionate about exploring new technologies, driving innovation and improvements in everyday work. Iuliana enjoys connecting with people, sharing knowledge, and turning ideas into impactful results.
