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.. _about_zephyr:
Introduction to the Zephyr Project
##################################
The Zephyr Kernel is a small-footprint kernel designed for use on
resource-constrained systems: from simple embedded environmental
sensors and LED wearables to sophisticated smart watches and IoT
wireless gateways.
It is designed to be supported by multiple architectures, including
ARM Cortex-M, Intel x86, and ARC. The full list of supported platforms
can be found :ref:`here <board>`.
Licensing
*********
The Zephyr project associated with the kernel makes it available
to users and developers under the Apache License, version 2.0.
Distinguishing Features
***********************
The Zephyr Kernel offers a number of features that distinguish it from other
small-footprint OSes:
#. **Single address-space OS**. Combines application-specific code
with a custom kernel to create a monolithic image that gets loaded
and executed on a system's hardware. Both the application code and
kernel code execute in a single shared address space.
#. **Highly configurable**. Allows an application to incorporate *only*
the capabilities it needs as it needs them, and to specify their
quantity and size.
#. **Resources defined at compile-time**. Requires all system resources
be defined at compilation time, which reduces code size and
increases performance.
#. **Minimal error checking**. Provides minimal run-time error checking
to reduce code size and increase performance. An optional error-checking
infrastructure is provided to assist in debugging during application
development.
#. **Extensive suite of services** Offers a number of familiar services
for development:
* *Multi-threading Services* for both priority-based, non-preemptive
fibers and priority-based, preemptive tasks with optional round robin
time-slicing.
* *Interrupt Services* for both compile-time and run-time registration
of interrupt handlers.
* *Inter-thread Synchronization Services* for binary semaphores,
counting semaphores, and mutex semaphores.
* *Inter-thread Data Passing Services* for basic message queues, enhanced
message queues, and byte streams.
* *Memory Allocation Services* for dynamic allocation and freeing of
fixed-size or variable-size memory blocks.
* *Power Management Services* such as tickless idle and an advanced idling
infrastructure.