At NXP, our mission is to empower developers with the software, tools and equipment they need to bring innovative ideas to life in embedded and IoT applications. Explore deep insights into how Zephyr is changing the RTOS landscape—and why NXP’s ongoing investment in the project is helping shape the future of embedded systems.
What Is Zephyr, and Why Does It Matter?
Zephyr is an open source real-time operating system (RTOS) designed for resource-constrained devices. It’s highly configurable, cross-architecture and growing fast—backed by a community that includes chip manufacturers, software companies, OEMs, training organizations and universities.
More than just a kernel, Zephyr includes robust middleware for networking, wireless communication and test infrastructure. Its scalability makes it ideal for everything from basic sensor nodes to complex IoT devices.
Developers are able to easily tailor a solution to meet their needs using a true open source project with hardware, developer tools, sensor and device drivers.
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With close to 50 official member organizations, plus contributions from others which aren’t members, Zephyr is quickly establishing itself as a leading RTOS platform for developers who want flexibility without vendor lock-in while still having confidence that their software investment is safe.
Why NXP Is Betting Big on Zephyr
NXP has been involved with Zephyr from the start, as one of the project’s founding members in 2015. That early decision has proven to be an excellent strategic one, as customer demand for Zephyr support has grown rapidly over the last few years. Today, Zephyr-related questions are a daily part of conversations with our customers.
This momentum is driven by the increasing need for flexible, secure and scalable software platforms that support a wide range of use cases. In recent years—especially after global supply chain challenges—many companies have looked to consolidate their software stacks and move away from fragmented development environments. Zephyr’s open source foundation and cross-platform capabilities make it a natural fit.
Zephyr RTOS is powering the next wave of edge computing with NXP's innovations. Tune into the latest EdgeVerse Techcast episode to dive deeper.
NXP’s Contributions to the Zephyr Community
NXP contributes to the Zephyr Project in several key ways. Beyond adding support for our own devices, our engineering teams are active in upstream development, contributing code enhancements, stepping up as maintainers for features such as Bluetooth Classic, and participating in working groups that help guide the project’s roadmap.
In the project’s March 2025 release, NXP ranked among the top three contributors—highlighting just how deeply we’re engaged in moving Zephyr forward.
A Platform That Works Across the NXP Portfolio
Zephyr aligns perfectly with NXP’s wide range of embedded processors, from flash-based MCUs to crossover microcontrollers like the i.MX RT series. It provides developers with a unified platform, enabling software reuse across devices with very different architectures and hardware peripherals.
Discover how NXP and the Zephyr Project are advancing edge-connected devices with optimized power efficiency, security and scalability.
Zephyr’s standardized APIs make it easy to port applications across device families without major refactoring. Additionally, by using device tree and kconfig, originally popularized in the Linux community, developers can bind drivers to hardware and enable software features through configuration files—rather than editing the application source code. Although these concepts can be unfamiliar at first, we see that the vast majority of developers find that once they’re comfortable with these concepts, they greatly simplify code porting and allow for more maintainable, scalable codebases in the long run.
Smoother Development with NXP Tools
To further streamline the development experience, NXP has built Zephyr support into the MCUXpresso extension for Visual Studio Code, giving developers a powerful and familiar environment to work in. Paired with the MCUXpresso Installer for rapid setup of the Zephyr environment, it’s easier than ever to get started building Zephyr-based applications on NXP hardware.
This integrated tooling reflects NXP’s commitment to improving the developer experience and making advanced embedded development more accessible, especially for those adopting Zephyr for the first time.
Wrapping It Up
The world of embedded development is moving fast, and Zephyr is leading the way with a modern, collaborative approach to real-time software. With a growing community, strong architecture and meaningful contributions from industry leaders like NXP, Zephyr is well positioned to become an RTOS of choice for developers across the globe.
