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Hardware Technology

Single-Chip NIC Solutions? 50

Posted by Cliff from the invoking-the0renaissance-of-hardware dept.
scdeimos asks: "I started out working life as an electrical engineer, but subsequently moved into software development due to the lack of 'interesting' design jobs in the EE industry...one manufactory/power plant control system is much like another. Nowadays I find myself heading back to electronics as the field becomes more and more interesting with PIC?s and STAMP?s that are more powerful than many desktop systems were just a few years ago. Companies like Future Technology Devices International make useful single-chip USB solutions that allow your hack to appear as a serial port (FT232BM) or a parallel port (FT245BM) connected to your favourite CPU for device intelligence. This lets you build useful test equipment like computer-controlled voltmeters, logic analyzers and CRO?s for not much outlay.Which brings me to my question, which centers around NIC solutions. What are people using out there today for providing single-chip NIC connectivity? What benefits do you feel your chip preference has over the competition? Do any have a sockets (TCP/UDP) implementation built-in, or do you still have to write your own protocol libraries in the support CPU?"
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Single-Chip NIC Solutions? More

Single-Chip NIC Solutions?

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  • TINI from Dallas Semi (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TwoStep ( 36482 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:24PM (#6466474) Homepage
    I have been playing with TINI [ibutton.com] from Dallas Semiconductor. It runs java code, and supports a pretty good subset of the full Java 1.4 spec. It costs around $100 to get started with it.

    Twostep
    • If you like TINI, you'll love SNAP more:

      http://www.imsys.se/snap

      Much more processing power, more RAM, more Flash memory, 100Mbit Ethernet onboard, 1-wire, CAN, I2C, SPI, much better CPU bus than the TINI (no CMOS load issues), etc. etc. And it's ~US$130 IIRC.

      -psy
    • Yeah the TINI is really neat. My Engineering Thesis [vextorconsulting.com] (all Java and VHDL code included) used it interfaced (via parallel) with an EPLD (20k gates plus memory cells) from Altera.

      I used it to simulate and control a home automation system over the net. It is a really interesting piece of software but as a sibling piece has mentioned it has pretty severe loading issues. In one case, making a ring with your thumb and middle finger around a wire tied to one of the address pins and moving your hand was enough t
  • PIC?s and STAMP?s
    Either the editors should watch out for 8-bit characters, or the Slash code should accept the entire Latin1 character set. The headers [delorie.com] say that Slashdot does 8-bit characters, but this is a lie. And translating them to question marks is one of the more benign things it does with them.
    • The headers are faked... See SlashChick's journal [slashdot.org] to see the full story...

      • Thank you -- that was an instructive link. However:
        • It boggles my mind that Slashchick managed to become a "web developer" without discovering how the default character set is specified in IE. (View/Encoding).
        • sC seems to think that IE is doing something non-compliant when it assumes a character set. I dont see anything like that in the html spec [w3.org]. It simply says that every document should have a character set specified somehow. But what is a browser supposed to do when it's not?
        • UTF-8 and 8859-1 (aka ISO L

  • Single chip is harder... (Score:5, Informative)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @07:41PM (#6466603) Journal
    I haven't seen any single-chip solutions yet... that's probably because the magnetics already add some parts, and probably also because the high-speed digital processor and the relatively noisy ethernet connection process technologies don't coexist.

    You may want to check out Rabbit Semiconductor's core modules [rabbitsemiconductor.com]. There's also the xport [slashdot.org], that, while small, has got limited I/O.
  • I doubt you'll see anything particularly soon....for a multitude of reasons:

    (1) Magnetics will be hard to put onto the same silicon die
    (2) Line-side, Ethernet is fairly high voltage -- see #1
    (3) Putting everything on silicon limits connectivity options

    -psy
    • Try an Axis board [axis.com]. They are low power and high performance. The chip basically needs a voltage regulator and a crystal. Schematics are available and the software tools are free. They cost about $300 and run Linux.
    • What are magnetics for? I did some research, and I think they might be like transformers. Lots of tiny ones, in a little box. One for each wire on the interface.

      For what? Impedance matching? Am I right or wrong.
      • The Ethernet spec says that equipment must have isolation from the cable capable of withstanding 1500 volts. One way to do this is to have a transformer between the cable and the rest of the electronics.

  • Im not sure if this is what you want (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jjshoe ( 410772 ) on Thursday July 17, 2003 @10:01PM (#6467383) Homepage
    But i looked at this solution before [siteplayer.com]

  • XPort (Score:4, Informative)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) * on Thursday July 17, 2003 @11:19PM (#6467905) Homepage Journal
    I have been very eager to try some projects with the XPort [lantronix.com] from Lantronix. It's technically not single chip but really it's about as close as you can get for what it does. It fits in an ethernet hood, so it's small enough to put into most anything that needs ethernet. Very cool little gadget...

    ~GoRK

    • Re:XPort (Score:3, Informative)

      by BiggerIsBetter ( 682164 )

      I've got one. It's neat alright, if you want to network something that's already got serial comms in it.

      Basically it provides a baby webserver, and lets you pass serial commands over the IP link. It's got an 8051 onboard, but the idea is to store a Java Applet onboard and present that via the webserver. The user can then use the Applet to talk to the device. The XPort then shuttles data to and from the serial over Ethernet

      I guess you can do trickier stuff if you want to hack the firmware, but for me, it's

      • Yeah I was going to use it to network my vending machine... Is the java-applet approach their standard tool, and you have to control the serial interface from a remote host? I was under the impression that the actual point of the whole thing was to allow you to develop an internal application. Does the dev kit not allow you to do this? Do you truly have to 'hack' the firmware or is it simply a matter of compiling your own app for the thing?

        ~GoRK

        • Re:XPort (Score:3, Informative)

          by BiggerIsBetter ( 682164 )

          I didn't get their Dev Kit, because the Sample kit was enough for what I needed, however the docs do cover this. The Java approach seems to be the standard easy way of using the device, but the Dev Kit does support custom applications and firmware. The Datasheet shows that "OEM" code on a layer above the device server, and the FAQ says it is written for a Borland Compiler. Looks like writing a truely embedded app running on the XPort should work just fine.

  • Dallas microcontroller (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Friday July 18, 2003 @02:21AM (#6468688) Homepage Journal
    I have heard good things about the Dallas DS80C400 [maxim-ic.com] controller. It's an 8051 core which is great 'cuz you can take advantage of the huge 8051 experience base out there, it's got 10/100 Ethernet with TCP/IP, DHCP, even IPv4 and IPv6 . It has a direct memory access mode which makes it really nice for moving good-sized chunks of data without bottlenecking in a microcontroller's tiny RAM area.

    So you don't get 100mbps speeds, more like 5mbps. But for an all-in-one microcontroller, it's ripe for some really neat little devices. You! Give your toaster, microwave, breadmaker, washing machine, garbage disposal, TV, stereo system, and coffee maker IP addresses. Now!

    Hit a secret little button, and the stereo switches to slow music, the lights dim, annoying rackety appliances shut down, the TV turns off, and the warm smell of toasting cinnamon-rasin bread fills the room...wait, that was for breakfast. Oh well.
  • Single chip computers are fun, but if you're not working on something that HAS to be single chip I don't understand why you'd go there. An old P200 machine can be had pretty much for free, and the ISA bus is incredibly easy to use (not to mention those "legacy devices" like serial ports and parallel ports). Boot it up in freedos with a network stack and you got a basic "programmable controller" that'll do just about anything you want. And even at max warp a PIC ain't gonna outrun a P200.

    Example: I wrote an

    • Single chip computers are fun, but if you're not working on something that HAS to be single chip I don't understand why you'd go there. An old P200 machine can be had pretty much for free, and the ISA bus is incredibly easy to use

      If size, power consumption and reliability are non-issues, then you are right. ;-)

      • That's a red herring. How many machines have gone months - even years - without a reboot? Given that an "embedded" project may need the HD only for booting (or maybe not even that) I fail to see a compelling case there.
  • Atmel AVRs have been paying for my supper for awhile now. Atmel fairly recently released a internet developer kit for the platform; I imagine this could be easily moved to another platform. It's not excessively expensive for the development kit, and can be produced in volume.

    http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/tools_card.as p ?t ool_id=2727

    This kit contains everything required to start working with embedded web designs. The Kit is using an ethernet connection to the web, and comes with a complete license fr

  • Here's One Use (Score:2, Informative)

    by Ed Almos ( 584864 )
    These guys are obviously experts at cramming NIC interfaces into small spaces. How about a web server built into an RJ45 socket ?

    http://www.commanderx.com/productinfo.html

    Ed Almos
  • Not exactly a single chip but a Rabbit core module [rabbitsemiconductor.com] is what you want. They are $59 in qty of 1 or $34 in qty of 1000. For about $250 you get everything you need to get started including: a C compiler, an open source TCP/IP stack, protoboard, and programming cable. Check out my on-line Etch-A-Sketch [gadgeteer.org] I made using one
    • That's a neat device. Thanks for telling us about it!

      I'm currently building a pinball machine with a Lindows computer as the brains. This core module looks like what I need to connect the 84 switches and bulbs to the computer. Hell, I could even run perl on the computer and talk to the rabbit module as the "server". Only problem is, how do I reduce 84 switches down to 10 wires? There must be another component out there that does things like this.

      Ahh.. knowledge, what a funny thing. I'll figure this
      • Sounds like a fun moneypit project!

        One thing you can do is use a tree of multiplexors. You can address 2^7 = 128 switches with 7 output pins and 1 read input pin (or read multiple inputs at once by trading some of the addressing pins for wider inputs). Wider inputs make a lot of sense if you have to read the switch values frequently.

        As far as the lights go, you'd do something similar, except you'll need demuxes and some type of memory (e.g. a flipflop or relay). With the relay, you might be able to dri
      • Only problem is, how do I reduce 84 switches down to 10 wires? There must be another component out there that does things like this.


        Two words: shift registers. Reduce 84+ switches to 2 I/O lines (3 for safety -- I'd never design a circuit without a reset). I'll even be nice and look in the basement for a handful if you want to pay the postage :-)
  • http://www.smsc.com/main/catalog/lan91c111.html

    Reasonably usable fast ethernet chip. Interface suited for embedded processors (e.g. it's non-PCI). Source code for Linux driver on the web site (though it's for 2.0). You should be able to look at other drivers for other FEAST-based cards for newer drivers.

    As another poster pointed out, magnetics are external for nearly all ethernet chips.

  • I know you said single chip LAN but I like the uClinux project alot. http://www.uclinux.org

  • PIC microcontrollers and a Realtek 8019 or Crystal Semi one chip nic are the current favorites of many. We have been able to achieve 3MB/sec quite easily.

    Microchip has code that you can use too.

    I recommend PIC18's if you are going to do this though, since the 16's are a little too limited at times. We have used both though.
  • I was not aware of either the XPort or Rabbit options - at $40 to $60, those really open up some low-cost applications that are not in the range of $200-500 SBCs such as the Axis boards.

    Is there anything similar for wireless 802.11, for less than a hundred bucks and with a power draw of less than 5W ? That is to say, a small board or chip with the functionality of the XPort or Rabbit, but in a wireless version? I know that AMD has the Alchemy [amd.com] boards, but my impression is that these are several hundred
  • Thank you to everyone who posted a serious response. There are some really useful suggestions there which I'll assess for my project.

    For those who were curious as to what I'm up to, this particular project is essentially a security monitor using colour CCD module on a gimbal mount driven by sub-micro servos (as you'd use on remote controlled aircraft). This gives it around 270 degrees pan and tilt. The beast is currenlty hooked-up to a host computer using a USB bus.

    The eventual aim is to move this into
    • Hello. I have been planning to do what you are talking about for some time. And I am currently researching the possibility of converting USB2 packets into packets that can be sent over RJ45 cable. And then a driver on the host machine will convert the packets back. Only problem is, how? I don't know the specifics of the packet types. And I don't think a PIC would be fast enough. Although you can find circuit diagrams on the net for connecting USB devices to a PIC.

      • I just treated it as a matter of subsystems.

        The system core is currently based on a 20MHz PIC which reads and encodes the CCD image data and also controls the position of the pan and tilt sub-micro servos with regular 1.5-2.5ms pulse trains. The frequency of the pulse trains isn't critical (PPM/PCM radio control systems are typically using between 50 and 60 frames per second) so it only needs to update the servos ocassionally. I figured it was a lot easier to use off-the-self servos instead of trying to b

  • Broadcom makes at least one dual gigabit part. It is in the 570X family, and uses dual MIPS cores. I'm guessing these are pretty pricey.


    Broadcom's website is lame, but here is a card that is based off it:


    http://www.silicom.co.il/pxg2f.htm

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