Ethernut: Free Embedded-Ethernet Project

Ethernut is the name of an embedded-ethernet opensource project managed by Herald Kipp (egnite Software GmbH). The project includes hardware and software which you can freely download from egnite website.

Ethernut 1

You can download the schematic, pcb and software freely form egnite site. Maybe you can build your own board at your place, but I do not recommend that way. It can be very difficult. Just buy one or two ready to use board from Ethernut distributor.

Processor

Ethernut offers 3 versions of development board:

• Ethernut 1
  Using Atmel AVR ATMega128 processor and Realtek RTL8019AS ethernet controller (10Mbps ).
• Ethernut 2
  Still use ATMega128, but at this version they use LAN91C111 as ethernet controller (10/100 Mbps).
• Ethernut 3
  Use Atmel ARM AT91R40008 and DM9000E ethernet controller (10/100 Mbps).

Nut/OS is a bundle of simplified RTOS and TCP/IP stack. Ethernut’s RTOS supports simple cooperative multi-threading (non-preemtive!), event handler, dinamic memory allocation, interupt driven I/O, and timers. The TCP/IP stack offers: ARP, IP, ICMP, UDP and TCP, DHCP, DNS and HTTP.

Ethernut Nut/OS was originaly writen using AVR-GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). AVR-GCC is also opensource AVR-GCC is available freely for Linux and Windows user.

Ethernut 1 and 2 use AVR ATMega128, so you need compiler and downloader tool for that chip. Fortunately you can get those tools for free.

For Windows user, you can download WinAVR , which contain AVR-GCC and other tools. Also, download AVR Studio, which has STK-200/500 downloader. All of those software are free.

Besides WinAVR, if you have money, you can use commercial compiler, ICCAVR from ImageCraft and CodeVisionAVR from HP InfoTech.

For Linux user, you can download AVR-GCC package. You will also need UISP downloader.

Note, to download your code to Ethernut board, you need to build or buy SPI or JTAG Programming Adapters.

Ethernut 2 and 3 implement Xilinx CPLD. If you want to modify the CPLD program, you need to download the free ISE Webpack Software from www.xilinx.com.

For ARM processor (Ethernut 3.0), you will need to download ARM-GCC.

Ethernut 2

There are 2 sample application that you can use as starting point to explore Ethernut system:

• Ethernet Boot Loader
  BOOTP/TFTP based boot loader
• WebPort
  Simple web-sever to monitor and control I/O ports via browser.

Ethernut 3

I directly get this table from egnite website.

Ethernut is published under GPL. Please note, all code published under GPL forces you to publish all derived code and all modifications.

Source: www.ethernut.de