Since their introduction in 1997, Atmel's AVR microcontrollers guarantee fast code execution combined with the lowest possible power consumption. Ethernut 1.3 is a cost efficient single board computer, which integrates the 8-bit AVR ATmega128 into an Ethernet network.
The minimalist design of Ethernut 1.3 is reduced to four essential components: Flash microcontroller, 32 kByte RAM, Ethernet controller and power supply.
Like all other Ethernut boards, it provides an extension connector for attaching additional hardware. Hence it is suitable for both the prototyping of your own hardware as well as for direct integration into your finished product.
This robust board has been in production since 2001. Our in-house quality control procedures guarantee a consistently high level of reliability.
Application development is carried out in the high level programming language C, using either free GNU tools or the commercially supported ImageCraft compiler.
An active Open Source community developed and managed Nut/OS, a cooperative multithreading operating system with TCP/IP stack, which was specially designed with tiny embedded systems in mind. The well documented source code provides a convenient user interface, which is very similar to the C programming of desktop PC’s. Programmers will therefore quickly feel at ease operating this.
Although pre-configured for Ethernut 1.3, all important settings can be customized with just a few mouse clicks with an easy to use graphical interface available on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X PCs incorporating any special requirements. A complete Internet enabled web server needs less than 60 kByte Flash and 12 kByte RAM. This leaves enough space for ambitious product ideas, including a boot loader for the update of firmware via the network. Many useful example applications are included in the distribution.
Several companies with many years of experience in Nut/OS software and Ethernut hardware offer commercial support.
Furthermore, mailing lists are an important element of this Open Source project, which enable developers to share their experiences and to help one another in problem solving.
The entire source code for the target system, as well as the hardware design, have a permissive BSD Licence. This is available for commercial products without any licence fees.
In contrast to some other Open Source licence models, there is no obligation to publish your own source code enhancements.
