SBC develops budget networking applications

An Eurotech product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Aug 27, 2003

Arcom is addressing the demand for low cost controllers with network enabled communications and I/O control by offering a new development kit for the 25MHz 386EX-based Merlin.

Arcom is addressing the demand for low cost controllers with network enabled communications and I/O control by offering a new development kit for the 25MHz 386EX-based Merlin, fully supported with the eCos embedded operating system.

eCos is an open source, royalty-free, real-time operating system built with a TCP/IP stack and a selection of network application such as a HTTP server, FTP client, TFTP client/server, and an SNMP agent.

The highly configurable nature of eCos allows the operating system to be customised to precise application requirements, delivering the best possible run-time performance with absolutely no associated runtime or development tool costs.

The eCos based application uses RedBoot to load and run the image from embedded Flash memory as well as providing a reliable download mechanism using one of the serial ports (X or Y modem protocol) or the Ethernet channel (using TFTP).

For unattended or automated startup, boot scripts can be stored in Flash to allow a new eCos image to be remotely loaded from a TFTP server.

The complete development kit includes the Merlin single board computer, power supply, Ethernet and serial cables, quick-start manual and a comprehensive CD loaded with all the application development tools (GCC compiler and GDB debugger) for both Windows and Linux based host systems.

The Merlin single board computer is a low cost, small footprint SBC which features the Intel 25MHz 386EX CPU, along with three serial ports (two RS232, one RS422/485), 10Base-T Ethernet, 2Mbyte DRAM, 1Mbyte Flash, 512Kbit battery-backed SRAM, real time clock and an onboard 8-18V DC (or 10-16V AC) power supply.

The board also includes an I/O expansion port for driving custom I/O, an onboard 48bit unique ID device and a battery.

The Merlin eCos development kit is aggressively priced at GBP 195 (Eur 275) and available from stock.