Product category: Reference Designs
News Release from: GD Technik | Subject: AT91-NET Ethernet card
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 06 April 2004
Ethernet reference design uses Atmel
ARM7
The AT91-NET Ethernet card for Atmel EB40A and EB55 ARM development boards has been developed in response to customer demand for an Ethernet port on the ARM development environment.
Traditionally, when it comes to reference designs distributors simply act as middlemen, buying them from their principals and selling them on with little or no added value Not so with the new AT91-NET from GD Technik, which marks a significant milestone for the UK's leading design-in distributor
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 24 Feb 2000 at 8.00am (UK)
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The AT91-NET Ethernet card for Atmel EB40A and EB55 ARM development boards, has been developed in response to customer demand for an Ethernet port on the ARM development environment.
It is the culmination of four months collaboration between GD Technik, IAR Systems and Simtec Electronics, one of the UK's leading ARM design consultancies.
There is no doubting the popularity of Ethernet given that it is currently used for approximately 85% of the world's LAN-connected PCs and workstations.
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And the reason this is so is because the Ethernet protocol is easy to understand, implement, manage and maintain; it allows low-cost network implementations; provides extensive topological flexibility; and is not tied to any particular vendor.
In the AT91-NET designers have a complete reference design specifically aimed at getting product to market faster, saving valuable time and effort.
"The ARM7 is a very good development environment and when our FAEs started reporting back a significant demand for the addition of an Ethernet capability, rather than duck the issue we thought we would do something about it", said Lisalynn Carter, GD Technik's Managing Director.
"We are at the sharp end of design-in distribution and pride ourselves in the training and software development we do for our customers.
In a way, producing our own reference design was a natural progression of the services we offer".
As the AT91-NET was developed for Atmel's EB40A and EB55 ARM environments, GD Technik decided to use as much Atmel silicon in its design as possible.
At the heart of the card, which simply plugs into the Atmel development board, is the 10/100Base-T Ethernet controller.
Onboard 16Mbit of 49 Series Flash memory is available for user programs and a CPLD provides address decoding for both the Flash memory and the Ethernet controller.
Also on the card is an IDE port that can be used to connect to a hard disk, CD-ROM or provide further expansion capabilities.
With the board comes complete instructions, written by GD Technik, showing the designer how to set up and use the system.
Example software for UDP level data transfer is also available.
Full support of the new reference design is provided by GD Technik FAEs, who will also supply, on request, board schematics and the example software as source code.
"The AT91-NET is undoubtedly a major milestone in GD Technik's development", said Carter.
"We are already looking at future developments of it, including programming of the board via Ethernet and a plug-in CAN controller module, together with other new designs.
While the IP of the AT91-NET reference design is jointly owned by GD Technik and IAR Systems, it is available exclusively from GD Technik and its ATeG partners in Europe".
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