Description

• Zephyr 4.3 feature freeze!
• Peter Korsgaard, the author of Buildroot, has been contributing to Zephyr, particularly around the EEPROM API.
• Qt completed their acquisition of IAR Systems. Qt already has some level of Zephyr support.
• The "search by compatible" feature is now live in the Zephyr board catalog. You can now search for boards by specific sensors, peripherals, or IP blocks (e.g., all boards with a BME sensor).
• A new Devicetree linter (dts-lint) is now enforced in CI to check formatting of devicetree files. It can auto-fix issues and is part of the dts-lsp language server folks can use in VS Code, Vim, etc. to get advanced Devicetree editing features (also see the Tech Talk on the topic)

Board Documentation as a Database

• Benjamin and Fabio discuss whether Zephyr accidentally built the best database on the internet for boards and system-on-chips.
• Most vendor sites have inconsistent search/filter capabilities, and there's nothing that searches across vendors with structured data like Zephyr's devicetree-based approach.
• Benjamin is (half-)considering exposing the board catalog data as a formal API, not just the current JSON file.
• The structured devicetree data is driving better documentation quality -- people are more careful about binding descriptions now that they're prominently displayed.

New Shields Added

• Adafruit DS2484 1-Wire Shield
• Adafruit LIS3MDL Shield (magnetometer)
• Adafruit SHT40/SHT41/SHT45 humidity shields
• Adafruit INA228 Power Monitor -- 85V, 20-bit precision high-side current/power monitor with energy/charge accumulator
• Adafruit LPS22 Shield (pressure sensor)
• Adafruit AD5693 DAC shield
• Canis Labs CANPico shield for Raspberry Pi Pico with MCP251xFD CAN controller. Check out Canis Labs' videos on CAN bus security!

New Boards Added (Selection)

• RAK3112 -- ESP32-S3-based module with LoRa, BLE, and Wi-Fi
• PIC32CZ CA80 Curiosity Ultra -- Cortex-M7 with gigabit ethernet, high-speed USB, 8MB flash, 1MB SRAM. Part of Microchip's big push with 4-5 new boards this week!
• Renesas EK-RA8D2 and EK-RA8M2 -- 1GHz Cortex-M85 (!), gigabit ethernet with switch, 1MB MRAM, 2MB SRAM, external 64MB flash and SDRAM, camera port
• Pebble Time 2 and Pebble 2 Duo -- SiFli-based, still early-stage support

New Drivers

• Heart Rate Monitoring:
  • MAX30101 optical heart rate sensor -- now supports multiple instances (btw, Fabio wants to know: "What application needs to monitor multiple hearts?!")
  • MAX32664C Biometric Sensor Hub -- includes the algorithm and reports actual heart rate (contributed by folks from the ZSWatch project)
• DA7212 audio codec from NXP FRDM-MCXN236 board.
• ALS31300 3D Hall Effect Sensor for industrial joysticks
• MTCH9010 liquid leak detector from Microchip -- uses electrodes (or PCB traces) and likely includes smart anti-corrosion features
• NXP SC18IS606 I2C-to-SPI bridge
• HUB12 interface LED matrix display controller

Other Notable Changes

• New  Quality of Service (QoS) over Ethernet sample
• More support for STM32 with firmware in external flash

Tips for Getting Changes Merged During Stabilization

• Use the word "fix" in your commit message if it's actually fixing something!
• Set the milestone in GitHub to 4.3 (if you have permissions)