1, 4 and 8 ports programmable serial device servers
Industrial Embedded Applications and RISC Technology
RISC-CPU based hardware platforms became the first choice for industrial embedded applications.
The reason for the rapid spreading of RISC technology in industrial automation field lie in the advanced powerfull 32Bits architecture of the RISC
CPUs bundled toghether with its high reability, low power consumption and attractive price level.
ARM9 RISC-CPUs with high performance cores toghether with a great variety of integrated peripherals such as, gpi/o, ethernet,
usb, serial ports, a/d- and d/a converters appears to be the ideal technology for today "system-on-module" solutions.
Running under Linux operating system or derivates of it RISC-CPUs based systems are winning more and more "embedded-applications" projects, such as
print-server, router etc.
However using RISC-CPUs in small to medium volume applications - typical for industrial fields - requests to develop special
hardware toghether with associated device drivers. Developers can use Linux and its GNU developing tools to implement the
dedicated application, but still a lot of work is necessary to customize bootloader, develop drivermodules, update utilities
etc.
What is OpenNetCom?
OpenNetCom is an easy to use programmable RISC-CPU Platform running under µ-Linux.
Introduction to OpenNetCom
OpenNetcom family, a new release in VScom product palette, is designed to allow short and easy development of
embedded-applications in industrial fields. Very small and at low cost OpenNetcom family uses ARM9 RISC platforms running
the open linux distribution µLinux. With bootloader and hardware driver modules already integrated the developer can
concentrate on implementation of his application that can easily be cross compiled and uploaded. This reduce development costs,
improve time-to-market and allows efficient production of small-lot series.
OpenNetcom models are free programmable and their hardware is based on the architecture of the Netcom PRO, serial device
servers. OpenNetcom models basically run with ARM9 CPU (166MHz), 16MB SDRAM, 2MB Flash. The Ethernet port is provided by
100MBit MAC or over 802.11b/G Wireless port. Serial ports are equipped with high speed 16C950 UARTs with 128Byte Fifo,
that may be individually configured for RS232 or RS422/RS485 operating modes. Additionally there are there internal GPIO
connectors to be free programmed by the user. OpenNetcom family has models with 1, 2, 4 and 8 serial ports.
Developing with OpenNetCom
The OpenNetCom operating system is µLinux, so there are no license fees involved. The kernel of
µLinux is specially adjusted for use with the ARM9 architecture and contains all tools and utilities to fully support
standard tasks, such like networking, serial communication, filesystem, etc.
Your own applications for OpenNetCom can be cross developed on a Linux system of your choice. You may compile it with GNU
Cross-Compiler for ARM-platform, upload it subsequently using FTP and start it on OpenNetCom uCLinux system. You can also
change and recompile the µLinux kernel itself. You can debug the code with gdbserver from the remote computer or debug
the kernel as well with kgdb. In this you need the console port on the additional service-board for OpenNetCom. This
service-board also offers JTAG and 3 LEDs for development and testing.
What is OpenNetCom?
