Atmel's $69 Linux Networking Processor Kit

The ubiquitous printed circuit board and its accompanying chips are the heart of any modern device and Amtel has come up with a solution for using these components to build an inexpensive network processor. Atmel Corporation just introduced a low-cost AVR32 Network Gateway design kit based on its 32-bit AT32AP7000 application processor. The AVR32 32-bit architecture, introduced in 2006, is optimized to achieve more processing per MHz and is intended for compute intensive algorithms. The kit includes a PCB with the AT32AP7000 application processor and a full port of royalty-free peripheral drivers, protocol stacks, and communications applications. Amtel says the Network Gateway kit demonstrates the ability of the AVR32 and its embedded Linux kernel to handle high-speed serial communications, including bridging between interfaces that run incompatible serial protocols. Examples include routing and filtering of traffic between two TCP/IP networks as well as routing and filtering of data between TCP/IP, USB and SD cards. The PCB contains two RJ-45 Ethernet terminals, a high-speed USB 2.0 mini-B (device) terminal, a slot for an SD memory card, and an RS232 terminal port. An expansion header allows access to all unused signals of the AP7000 device. The Network Gateway kit ships pre-programmed with the Linux 2.6.18 operating system and a full implementation of serial communication drivers. To demonstrate connectivity between various drivers, the kit runs a selection of application software including USB-to-SD card mass storage driver, USB-to-TCP/IP bridge and TCP/IP-to-SD card file system driver (FTP, SAMBA). A range of TCP/IP protocols are supported including FTP, SNMP, HTTP, DNS, DHCP, SSH, Telnet and SAMBA. Customers will find all documentation by connecting to the kit’s on-board web server which is enabled by default. The same web server also allows remote configuration of the board settings. The AT32AP7000 processor includes a vector multiplication co-processor, 16-bit stereo audio DAC, 2048x2048 pixel TFT/STN LCD controller, high-speed USB 2.0 with on-chip transceivers (PHY), and two 10/100 Ethernet MACs. Serial interfaces include RS232, USART, I2S, AC97, TWI/I2C, SPI, PS/2 and several synchronous serial modules (SSC), supporting most serial communication protocols, making it a good fit for a variety of applications such as routers, POS, navigation, multimedia and printers. The kit is available now at a recommended price of $69.