Zephyr Kernel 1.8.0

We are pleased to announce the release of Zephyr kernel version 1.8.0.

Major enhancements with this release include:

• Tickless kernel

• IP Stack improvements

• Bluetooth 5.0 features

• Ecosystem: Tracing, debugging support through third-party tools (openocd, Segger Systemview)

• Improved build support on Mac and Windows development environments

• Xtensa GCC support

• Initial implementation of MMU/MPU support

• Expanded device support

The following sections provide detailed lists of changes by component.

Kernel

• Use k_cycle_get_32 instead of sys_cycle_get_32 for Kernel

• Added k_panic() and k_oops() APIs for Kernel

• Added k_thread_create() API for Kernel

• Added k_queue API for Kernel

• Add tickless kernel support

Architectures

• arm: Update core to use struct k_thread

• arm: Added ARM MPU support

• dts: Added ARM CMSDK support

• arm: Added Initial support for NXP MPU

• arm: Added Device Tree Support for nRF52832 SoC based boards

• arm: Fixed nRF52840-QIAA SoC support for device tree

• arm: Added Device Tree Support for nRF52840 SoC & boards

• arm: Added Device Tree Support for nRF51822 SoC & boards

• dts: Introduced st/mem.h for FLASH & SRAM sizes

• dts: Put IRQ priority into the interrupt property

• arm: Support for MKL25Z soc

• arm: Added FPU support

• x86: defined MMU data structures

• Support for ARC EM Starter Kit version 2.3 added

Boards

• Added qemu_xtensa board definition

• Added a more informative page fault handler x86 board

• xtensa: build similar to other Zephyr arches

• Define MMU data structures for x86 board

• Added support for board disco_l475_iot1

• Added STM32F413 Nucleo board

• Added support for the CC3220SF_LAUNCHXL board

• Support for new ARM board FRDM-KL25Z

• arduino_101 board enable GPIO by default

• boards: convert to using newly introduced integer sized types

• arm: Added support for Nucleo L432KC board

• arm: Added support for STM32L496G Discovery board

• arm: Added support for STM32F469I-DISCO board

• BBC micro:bit: Added driver & API for the 5x5 LED display

Drivers and Sensors

• UART interrupt-driver API is better defined

• Support for pull-style console API

• nRF5 IEEE 802.15.4 radio driver added

• KW41Z IEEE 802.15.4 radio driver added

• Added MCUX TRNG driver

• Added support for the SiFive Freedom E310 pinmux driver

• drivers/sensor: Convert formatter strings to use PRI defines

• Added lps22hb sensor driver

• Added lsm6dsl sensor driver

• Added heart rate sensor driver

• Added support for max30101 heart rate sensor

• Added support for lis2dh accelerometer

Networking

• HTTPS server support added

• HTTP Basic-Auth support added

• IPv6 fragmentation support added

• Add block wise support to CoAP for well-known response

• Big refactoring of network buffer handling

• Start to collect TCP statistics if enabled in config

• IEEE 802.15.4 security support added

• DNS resolver sample application added

• IPv6 multicast listener (MLDv2) support added

• NATS protocol sample application added

• HTTP client and server connectivity fixes

• Network samples Coverity fixes

• Network samples llvm compiler warning fixes

• MQTT publisher connectivity fixes

• 6lo IPv6 header compression fixes

• CoAP connectivity fixes

• DHCPv4 connectivity fixes

• TCP connectivity fixes

• DNS documentation and connectivity fixes

• IPv6 connectivity fixes

• IPv4 ARP fixes

• IEEE 802.15.4 configuration tweaking fixes

• Remove ORFD (Overly Reduced Function Device) 802.15.4 support

• Network offloading driver fixes

• Fix various memory leaks

• Properly check TCP and UDP checksum before accepting packet

• Start RX and TX network threads in proper order

• Network samples documentation fixes and clarifications

• RPL mesh routing fixes

• Network link (MAC) address fixes

Bluetooth

• Host: Added ATT and SMP packet tracking for flow control enforcement

• Host: GATT database changed to a linked list in preparation for dynamic allocation

• Bluetooth 5.0: The Controller reports itself as 5.0-capable

• Bluetooth 5.0: Introduced Channel Selection Algorithm #2 support

• Bluetooth 5.0: Added Multiple PHY support, both 2Mbit/s and long-range coded

• Bluetooth 5.0: Integrated Scan Request notifications

• Controller: Added Low Duty Cycle Directed Advertising support

• Controller: Added Scan duplicate filtering support

• Controller: Enforced complete role separation in the controller for smaller builds

• Controller: Introduced Advanced Controller configuration with several new Kconfig options

• Controller: Changed the radio interrupts to direct ISRs to reduce interrupt latency

• Added HCI Controller to Host flow control support in both Host and Controller

• BR/EDR: Added HFP (e)SCO audio channel establishment support

• BR/EDR: Added support for a functional SDP server

Build and Infrastructure

• Support building host tools

• Added separate DTS target

• Added support for MSYS2

• Use -O2 instead of -Os for ARC with SDK 0.9

Libraries

• Added library for software driven I2C

• Created a HTTP library

• Added HTTP server library support

• Added minimal JSON library

• Update TinyCrypt to version 0.2.6

• Added minimal JSON library

HALs

• Added Atmel SAM family I2C (TWIHS) driver

• Added Atmel SAM serial (UART) driver

• Added WDT driver for Atmel SAM SoCs

• Added Atmel SAM4S SoC support

• Imported Nordic 802.15.4 radio driver

• Added Initial support for NXP MPU

• Updated QMSI to 1.4 RC4

• Added FPU support

• Added basic support for STM32F413

• Introduced STM32F4x DMA driver

• pinmux: stm32: Added support for Nucleo L432KC

• Added support for STM32L496G Discovery board

• Added dts for STM32F407

• Added support for STM32F4DISCOVERY Board

• Added support for STM32F469XI

• Added support for STM32F469I-DISCO

Documentation

• Board documentation added for new board ports

• Added a board porting guide

• Added security sections to porting and user guides

• Continued migration of wiki.zephyrproject.org material to website and github wiki

• Improved CSS formatting and appearance of generated documents

• Added breadcrumb navigation header with kernel version number

• Updated getting started setup guides for Linux, Windows, and macOS

• Updates and additions to follow new and updated kernel features

• Broken link and spelling check scans

• Removed deprecated kernel documentation (pre 1.6 release) from website (still available in git repo if needed)

Tests and Samples

• Added test to verify same tick timeout expiry order

• Added clock_test for kernel

• Added tickless tests

• Added a simple CC2520 crypto dev test

• Added combined observer & broadcaster app for Bluetooth samples

• Added support to wait both IPv4 and IPv6

• Enabled tickless kernel option in some apps

JIRA Related Items

• ZEP-248 - Add a BOARD/SOC porting guide

• ZEP-339 - Tickless Kernel

• ZEP-540 - add APIs for asynchronous transfer callbacks

• ZEP-628 - Validate RPL Routing node support

• ZEP-638 - feature to consider: flag missing functionality at build time when possible

• ZEP-720 - Add MAX30101 heart rate sensor driver

• ZEP-828 - IPv6 - Multicast Join/Leave Support

• ZEP-843 - Unified assert/unrecoverable error infrastructure

• ZEP-888 - 802.15.4 - Security support

• ZEP-932 - Adapt kernel sample & test projects

• ZEP-948 - Revisit the timeslicing algorithm

• ZEP-973 - Remove deprecated API related to device PM functions and DEVICE_ and SYS_* macros

• ZEP-1028 - shrink k_block struct size

• ZEP-1032 - IPSP router role support

• ZEP-1169 - Sample mbedDTLS DTLS client stability on ethernet driver

• ZEP-1171 - Event group kernel APIs

• ZEP-1280 - Provide Event Queues Object

• ZEP-1313 - porting and user guides must include a security section

• ZEP-1326 - Clean up _THREAD_xxx APIs

• ZEP-1388 - Add support for KW40 SoC

• ZEP-1391 - Add support for Hexiwear KW40

• ZEP-1392 - Add FXAS21002 gyroscope sensor driver

• ZEP-1435 - Improve Quark SE C1000 ARC Floating Point Performance

• ZEP-1438 - AIO: AIO Comparator is not stable on D2000 and Arduino101

• ZEP-1463 - Add Zephyr Support in segger SystemView

• ZEP-1500 - net/mqtt: Test case for the MQTT high-level API

• ZEP-1528 - Provide template for multi-core applications

• ZEP-1529 - Unable to exit menuconfig

• ZEP-1530 - Hotkeys for the menu at the bottom of menuconfig sometimes doesn’t work

• ZEP-1568 - Replace arm cortex_m scs and scb functionality with direct CMSIS-core calls

• ZEP-1586 - menuconfig: Backspace is broken

• ZEP-1599 - printk() support for the ‘-’ indicator in format string (left justifier)

• ZEP-1607 - JSON encoding/decoding library

• ZEP-1621 - Stack Monitoring

• ZEP-1631 - Ability to use k_mem_pool_alloc (or similar API) from ISR

• ZEP-1684 - Add Atmel SAM family watchdog (WDT) driver

• ZEP-1695 - Support ADXL362 sensor

• ZEP-1698 - BME280 support for SPI communication

• ZEP-1711 - xtensa build defines Kconfigs with lowercase names

• ZEP-1718 - support for IPv6 fragmentation

• ZEP-1719 - TCP does not work with 6lo

• ZEP-1721 - many TinyCrypt test cases only run on ARM and x86

• ZEP-1722 - xtensa: TinyCrypt does not build

• ZEP-1735 - Controller to Host flow control

• ZEP-1759 - All python scripts needed for build should be moved to python 3 to minimize dependencies

• ZEP-1761 - K_MEM_POOL_DEFINE build error “invalid register name” when built with llvm/icx from ISSM toolchain

• ZEP-1769 - Implement Set Event Mask and LE Set Event Mask commands

• ZEP-1772 - re-introduce controller to host flow control

• ZEP-1776 - sending LE COC data from RX thread can lead to deadlock

• ZEP-1785 - Tinytile: Flashing not supported with this board

• ZEP-1788 - [REG] bt_enable: No HCI driver registered

• ZEP-1800 - Update external mbed TLS library to latest version (2.4.2)

• ZEP-1812 - Add tickless kernel support in HPET timer

• ZEP-1816 - Add tickless kernel support in LOAPIC timer

• ZEP-1817 - Add tickless kernel support in ARCV2 timer

• ZEP-1818 - Add tickless kernel support in cortex_m_systick timer

• ZEP-1821 - Update PM apps to use mili/micro seconds instead of ticks

• ZEP-1823 - Improved Benchmarks

• ZEP-1825 - Context Switching KPI

• ZEP-1836 - Expose current ecb_encrypt() as bt_encrypt() so host can directly access it

• ZEP-1856 - remove legacy micro/nano kernel APIs

• ZEP-1857 - Build warnings [-Wpointer-sign] with LLVM/icx (bluetooth_handsfree)

• ZEP-1866 - Add Atmel SAM family I2C (TWIHS) driver

• ZEP-1880 - “samples/grove/temperature”: warning raised when generating configure file

• ZEP-1886 - Build warnings [-Wpointer-sign] with LLVM/icx (tests/net/nbuf)

• ZEP-1887 - Build warnings [-Wpointer-sign] with LLVM/icx (tests/drivers/spi/spi_basic_api)

• ZEP-1893 - openocd: ‘make flash’ works with Zephyr SDK only and fails for all other toolchains

• ZEP-1896 - [PTS] L2CAP/LE/CFC/BV-06-C

• ZEP-1899 - Missing board documentation for xtensa/xt-sim

• ZEP-1908 - Missing board documentation for arm/nucleo_96b_nitrogen

• ZEP-1910 - Missing board documentation for arm/96b_carbon

• ZEP-1927 - AIO: AIO_CMP_POL_FALL is triggered immediately after aio_cmp_configure

• ZEP-1935 - Packet loss make RPL mesh more vulnerable

• ZEP-1936 - tests/drivers/spi/spi_basic_api/testcase.ini#test_spi - Assertion Fail

• ZEP-1946 - Time to Next Event

• ZEP-1955 - Nested interrupts crash on Xtensa architecture

• ZEP-1959 - Add Atmel SAM family serial (UART) driver

• ZEP-1965 - net-tools HEAD is broken for QEMU/TAP

• ZEP-1966 - Doesn’t seem to be able to both send and receive locally via local address

• ZEP-1968 - “make mrproper” removes top-level dts/ dir, makes ARM builds fail afterwards

• ZEP-1980 - Move app_kernel benchmark to unified kernel

• ZEP-1984 - net_nbuf_append(), net_nbuf_append_bytes() have data integrity problems

• ZEP-1990 - Basic support for the BBC micro:bit LED display

• ZEP-1993 - Flowcontrol Required for CDC_ACM

• ZEP-1995 - samples/subsys/console breaks xtensa build

• ZEP-1997 - Crash during startup if co-processors are present

• ZEP-2008 - Port tickless idle test to unified kernel and cleanup

• ZEP-2009 - Port test_sleep test to unified kernel and cleanup

• ZEP-2011 - Retrieve RPL node information through CoAP requests

• ZEP-2012 - Fault in networking stack for cores that can’t access unaligned memory

• ZEP-2013 - dead object monitor code

• ZEP-2014 - Default samples/subsys/shell/shell fails to build on QEMU RISCv32 / NIOS2

• ZEP-2019 - Xtensa port does not compile if CONFIG_TICKLESS_IDLE is enabled

• ZEP-2027 - Bluetooth Peripheral Sample won’t pair with certain Android devices

• ZEP-2029 - xtensa: irq_offload() doesn’t work on XRC_D2PM

• ZEP-2033 - Channel Selection Algorithm #2

• ZEP-2034 - High Duty Cycle Non-Connectable Advertising

• ZEP-2037 - Malformed echo response

• ZEP-2048 - Change UART “baud-rate” property to “current-speed”

• ZEP-2051 - Move away from C99 types to zephyr defined types

• ZEP-2052 - arm: unhandled exceptions in thread take down entire system

• ZEP-2055 - Add README.rst in the root of the project for github

• ZEP-2057 - crash in tests/net/rpl on qemu_x86 causing intermittent sanitycheck failure

• ZEP-2061 - samples/net/dns_resolve networking setup/README is confusing

• ZEP-2064 - RFC: Making net_shell command handlers reusable

• ZEP-2065 - struct dns_addrinfo has unused fields

• ZEP-2066 - nitpick: SOCK_STREAM/SOCK_DGRAM values swapped compared to most OSes

• ZEP-2069 - samples: net: dhcpv4_client: runs failed on frdm k64f board

• ZEP-2070 - net pkt doesn’t full unref after send a data form bluetooth’s ipsp

• ZEP-2076 - samples: net: coaps_server: build failed

• ZEP-2077 - Fix IID when using CONFIG_NET_L2_BLUETOOTH_ZEP1656

• ZEP-2080 - No reply from RPL node after 20-30 minutes.

• ZEP-2092 - [NRF][BT] Makefile:946: recipe for target ‘include/generated/generated_dts_board.h’ failed

• ZEP-2114 - tests/kernel/fatal : Fail for QC1000/arc

• ZEP-2125 - Compilation error when UART1 port is enabled via menuconfig

• ZEP-2132 - Build samples/bluetooth/hci_uart fail

• ZEP-2138 - Static code scan (coverity) issues seen

• ZEP-2143 - Compilation Error on Windows 10 with MSYS2

• ZEP-2152 - Xtensa crashes on startup for cores with coprocessors

• ZEP-2178 - Static code scan (coverity) issues seen