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Open Source Summit + Embedded Linux Conference North America...
May 18-20, 2026
Minneapolis, MN
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Note: The schedule is subject to change.

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Monday May 18, 2026 3:35pm - 4:15pm CDT
Zephyr’s build-time configuration excels at efficiency, but challenges mass production. When a single product design needs to support dozens of hardware variations, e.g. swapping out sensors or chargers due to supply chain constraints, the standard build flow often leads to managing a unique binary for every combination. This creates a validation nightmare.

This talk presents an architectural framework used in the ChromeOS Embedded Controller that brings runtime adaptability to Zephyr, achieving Linux-like flexibility without the memory overhead of a live DTB parser.

We cover two specific patterns:
1. Dynamic Driver Selection: We treat the Devicetree as a pool of supported components. By reading a configuration bitfield from manufacturing data (EEPROM or protected flash) at boot, the firmware dynamically initializes only the correct drivers for that specific unit.

2. Safe Hardware Discovery: Zephyr compiles away hardware descriptions, leaving the host OS blind to connected peripherals. We introduce a pipeline that exports Devicetree definitions into a "Component Manifest". This enables safe OS-level verification, avoiding the risks of "blind probing" on I2C buses.
Speakers
avatar for Wai-Hong Tam

Wai-Hong Tam

Staff Software Engineer, Google
Wai-Hong is a Staff Software Engineer at Google with over 20 years of embedded expertise. His career spans from RTOS and BootROM work at MediaTek to leading firmware architecture for ChromeOS. At Google, he has contributed to verified boot, U-Boot for the first ARM Chromebook, the... Read More →
Monday May 18, 2026 3:35pm - 4:15pm CDT
200D (Level Two)
  Zephyr

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