Kernel Services
The Zephyr kernel lies at the heart of every Zephyr application. It provides a low footprint, high performance, multi-threaded execution environment with a rich set of available features. The rest of the Zephyr ecosystem, including device drivers, networking stack, and application-specific code, uses the kernel’s features to create a complete application.
The configurable nature of the kernel allows you to incorporate only those features needed by your application, making it ideal for systems with limited amounts of memory (as little as 2 KB!) or with simple multi-threading requirements (such as a set of interrupt handlers and a single background task). Examples of such systems include: embedded sensor hubs, environmental sensors, simple LED wearable, and store inventory tags.
Applications requiring more memory (50 to 900 KB), multiple communication devices (like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy), and complex multi-threading, can also be developed using the Zephyr kernel. Examples of such systems include: fitness wearables, smart watches, and IoT wireless gateways.
Scheduling, Interrupts, and Synchronization
These pages cover basic kernel services related to thread scheduling and synchronization.
Data Passing
These pages cover kernel objects which can be used to pass data between threads and ISRs.
The following table summarizes their high-level features.
Object |
Bidirectional? |
Data structure |
Data item size |
Data Alignment |
ISRs can receive? |
ISRs can send? |
Overrun handling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
FIFO |
No |
Queue |
Arbitrary [1] |
4 B [2] |
Yes [3] |
Yes |
N/A |
LIFO |
No |
Queue |
Arbitrary [1] |
4 B [2] |
Yes [3] |
Yes |
N/A |
Stack |
No |
Array |
Word |
Word |
Yes [3] |
Yes |
Undefined behavior |
Message queue |
No |
Ring buffer |
Power of two |
Power of two |
Yes [3] |
Yes |
Pend thread or return -errno |
Mailbox |
Yes |
Queue |
Arbitrary [1] |
Arbitrary |
No |
No |
N/A |
Pipe |
No |
Ring buffer [4] |
Arbitrary |
Arbitrary |
No |
No |
Pend thread or return -errno |
[1] Callers allocate space for queue overhead in the data elements themselves.
[2] Objects added with k_fifo_alloc_put() and k_lifo_alloc_put() do not have alignment constraints, but use temporary memory from the calling thread’s resource pool.
[3] ISRs can receive only when passing K_NO_WAIT as the timeout argument.
[4] Optional.
Memory Management
These pages cover memory allocation and management services.
Timing
These pages cover timing related services.
Other
These pages cover other kernel services.