In an interview, Chad Steider, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Silicon labs, speaks with Electronics Buzz about how open, production-ready RTOS platforms like Zephyr are redefining modern IoT development. He shares insights on reducing system complexity, accelerating time to market, and the growing importance of hardware–software co-optimisation. The conversation also highlights opportunities for Indian developers to build globally scalable, standards-aligned IoT products.
Read the full interview here:
EB: From a developer’s perspective, what practical advantages does Zephyr RTOS offer compared to proprietary RTOS solutions when building modern IoT devices?
Chad: From a developer’s perspective, the biggest advantage of Zephyr RTOS is its combination of openness and production-readiness. As a vendor-neutral, open-source RTOS backed by a strong global community, Zephyr gives developers greater transparency, flexibility, and long-term confidence than many proprietary alternatives.
In practical terms, Zephyr’s modular architecture and scalable kernel make it well-suited for modern connected devices, while native support for connectivity stacks such as Bluetooth Low Energy is essential for today’s IoT applications. Developers also benefit from faster innovation cycles, easier access to upstream updates, and the ability to reuse code across product lines without being tied to a single vendor’s roadmap. At Silicon Labs, our focus is on ensuring Zephyr runs reliably and efficiently on our wireless platforms, so developers can benefit from openness without compromising performance, security, or power efficiency.
EB: Complexity remains a major barrier in IoT product development. How does Silicon Labs’ strengthened Zephyr ecosystem help reduce development effort and accelerate time to market?
Chad: IoT development becomes complex when teams must integrate hardware, RTOSes, wireless stacks, and tools from different sources, often with limited validation across the full system. Silicon Labs’ approach to the Zephyr ecosystem is focused on reducing this integration burden. We provide well-maintained Zephyr ports, validated wireless stacks, and close integration with our Simplicity SDK, providing developers with a solid, predictable starting point. This consistency helps reduce learning curves and lowers the risk of integration issues as projects scale. By spending less time on low-level bring-up and troubleshooting, teams can focus more on application development and differentiation, ultimately shortening development cycles and enabling a faster, more reliable path to production.
EB: As devices become more intelligent and connected, how important is tight hardware–software co-optimisation, and how does Silicon Labs enable it through its wireless platforms?
Chad: As IoT devices continue to add intelligence and connectivity, tight hardware–software co-optimization becomes essential. Power efficiency, security, and wireless reliability are no longer features that can be addressed in isolation; they depend on how well hardware capabilities and software frameworks are designed to work together.
Silicon Labs addresses this through wireless platforms where hardware features are closely aligned with software frameworks like Zephyr, Matter, and other standards-based wireless protocols and software stacks. This alignment allows developers to make more effective use of capabilities such as energy-efficient processing, secure boot, and support for intelligent edge applications. The result is more predictable system behavior, longer battery life, and a smoother transition from prototype to production, even as devices grow more capable and complex.
EB: India has a growing base of embedded engineers and startups. What opportunities do you see for Indian developers leveraging open RTOS platforms to build globally competitive products?
Chad: India’s embedded engineering ecosystem has grown significantly in both depth and maturity. Open RTOS platforms like Zephyr provide Indian developers and startups with access to globally adopted software foundations without the cost or constraints of proprietary licensing, which is particularly important for early-stage innovation.
By building on open platforms, teams in India can collaborate more easily with global developer communities, reuse proven software components, and align their products with international standards from the start. This creates a strong foundation for building solutions that are not just locally relevant but globally scalable.
We see strong opportunities across sectors such as smart infrastructure, industrial IoT, healthcare devices, and smart energy, where long-term reliability and interoperability are critical. Silicon Labs supports this ecosystem through local engagement, technical support, and reference designs that help teams move efficiently from ideas to production-ready products.
EB: CES 2026 highlighted a strong push toward software-led innovation. How do Silicon Labs’ latest announcements reflect changing expectations from developers and OEMs?
Chad: CES 2026 reinforced a broader industry shift toward software-led innovation, where developers and OEMs expect platforms to simplify development and scale as system complexity increases. Hardware remains important, but it is software, tools, and ecosystems that increasingly define developer experience and time to market.
Silicon Labs’ announcements reflected this shift by highlighting continued investment in open software platforms such as Zephyr and in development tools like the Simplicity SDK. These efforts are focused on improving onboarding, enabling software reuse, and supporting long product lifecycles.
We also see expectations changing around how development itself happens. As software complexity grows, developers are looking for workflows and tools that reduce manual effort and improve productivity, and our software strategy aligns with these evolving needs.
EB: For teams designing products under initiatives such as Make in India, what key considerations should they keep in mind when choosing an RTOS and a wireless platform for long-term scalability?
Chad: For initiatives like Make in India, long-term scalability and sustainability should be considered from the earliest stages of product design. Teams should prioritise RTOS platforms that are open, widely adopted, and supported by robust global ecosystems, ensuring products can evolve over time without costly migrations or technology dead ends.
Another important consideration is how well the platform supports integrated development across hardware, software, and validation. India’s engineering talent increasingly spans the full design lifecycle, and platforms that enable tighter collaboration across these domains allow teams to innovate more efficiently. As value creation in IoT shifts toward real-world silicon performance and software-driven differentiation, this integration becomes a key competitive advantage.
Finally, teams should look for wireless platforms that offer strong security, energy efficiency, and flexibility across protocols and markets. With scalable wireless solutions, robust software support, and long product lifecycles, Indian manufacturers can build locally, align with national initiatives such as Atmanirbhar Bharat, and still deliver products that are competitive on a global stage.
