Ethernut 5

SBC FOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS

Hardware

With the Ethernut 5 board the continuous development of the Ethernut family reached a new level. By using the same board geometry, this single board computer with its ARM9 CPU offers significantly higher performance and many more features than its predecessors.

Atmel’s AT91SAM9XE512 CPU provides a large number of peripherals, like 10/100Mbit Ethernet, USB 2.0, CMOS image sensor, SDcard/SDIO/MMC, IrDA, I2S, ADC, TWI or SPI. Like other members of the Ethernut family, the board provides an extension connector for attaching additional hardware. Hence it is suitable for prototyping your own hardware design or being directly integrated in to your final product.

The integrated Flash memory can be protected against external access and is complemented by 1BByte NAND Flash, 128 MByte SDRAM and 4MByte serial Flash. This may be further increased by using the MMC/SDcard socket.

For power supply, a conventional DC input of 7-24V is available. Alternatively the USB or Ethernet cable may be used as well. Flexible power management is done by a dedicated ATmega168 CPU. The real time clock is backed up by a double layer capacitor.

Our 100% in-house quality control guarantees a continuous high level of reliability.

The main characteristics of Ethernut 5.0 boards are:

  • 32-bit RISC CPU with 200 MHz clock and internal, protected Flash memory
  • 1 GByte NAND Flash and 128 MByte SDRAM, sufficient for running Linux
  • 4 MByte non-volatile serial data memory
  • Ethernet controller with 100BASE-T connector, supports Auto-MDIX and 802.3af PoE
  • USB 2.0 host controller to connect external USB devices
  • USB 2.0 device port to connect to a PC, optional power supply
  • RS-232 connector to control and monitor external devices
  • Expansion port with 15 digital 3.3 V I/O ports, including counter I/O, USART, SPI, I2C or PWM
  • FFC connector for image sensors
  • Simple memory expansion bus
  • 2 inputs to monitor analog values
  • Real time clock with double layer capacitor backup
  • Multimedia/SD card slot to easily exchange data
  • 20-pin JTAG connector for programming and debugging
  • Intelligent power management for power supply via USB, Ethernet or external 5-24 V

Software

Application development is done in the high level programming language C, using free GNU tools. An active Open Source community created Nut/OS, a cooperative RTOS with TCP/IP stack specially designed with low memory consumption in mind. The well documented and tested code provides a convenient, portable API. Programmers familiar with C for desktop PCs will soon feel comfortable with its standard C library functions. Although well pre-configured for Ethernut 5.0, an easy to use graphical interface is available on Linux, Windows and OS X PCs to adapt the system to special requirements with just a few mouse clicks.

In addition to Nut/OS, the Linux operating system is available for Ethernut 5. The board support package based on the Ångström distribution.

Licence

All Nut/OS target source code as well as the hardware design are published under the permissive free BSD License and can be used in commercial products for any purpose without license fees. In opposite to some other Open Source license models, it does not require to publish your own source code enhancements.

Development tools and the Linux operating system are published under the GNU Public License Version 2.

Specifications

Processor
CPU AT91SAM9XE, 200 MHz clock
NOR Flash memory Internal 512 kByte
NAND Flash memory External 1 GByte
Serial Flash memory External 4 MByte
Static RAM Internal 32 kByte
SDRAM External 128 MByte
RTC Hardware (PCF8563T)
Interfaces
Ethernet RJ45 10/100BaseT (LAN8710)
USB USB 2.0 device at Mini-B and host at Standard-A receptacle
RS-232 1 x 9-pin DCE, 8-Wire
Memory card SD card / SDIO / Multimedia card socket
Digital I/O 15 configurable GPIO lines with alternate functions
Analog I/O 2 channels with external trigger and reference
Programming 20-pin JTAG
Indicators Power (red), link (yellow), activity (green)
Power supply
Regulator 600 mA switcher (LT1616, LTC3407, LTC4411)
Management ATmega168 CPU
DC input 2.1 mm barrel connector, unregulated 5 to 24 V DC
USB USB Mini-B, 5 V
Ethernet IEEE 802.3af
Consumption < 1 W at 12 V
Battery backup Double layer capacitor for RTC
Protection
RS-232, USB 15 kV ESD protection
Ethernet Transformer isolation
Power Supply 1 A replaceable fuse, rectifier bridge, current limiter, thermal shutdown
Environmental
Operating temperature -20 to 85 °C (-4 to 185 °F)
Storage temperature -65 to 140 °C (-85 to 284 °F)
Humidity 5 to 95 % non-condensing
Approvals
Safety PCB flammability rating UL94-V-0
RoHS compliance EU directive 2002/95/EC
Metrics
Dimensions (L x W x H) 98 x 78 x 17 mm (3.86 x 3.07 x 0,67 in)
Weight 75 g (0.165 lb)
Product identification
PCB revision Written in copper on the PCB's backside
Serial number IEEE registered MAC Address on barcode sticker label (Code 128C)

Ethernut 5 Support

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, where developers use each others experience to help solving respective problems.

Documentation

Ethernut 5 on ethernut.de
This pages provides an overview on all available documentation for Ethernut 5

Ethernut 5 Hardware Manual 1.0
25.05.2011 | 4.44 MB | English

Ethernut 5 Firmware Updates
This document describes how to recover or install firmware on Ethernut 5

Ethernut 5 Boot Loading
This document describes the two
stages of the Ethernut 5 Boot Process, involving SAMBoot and U-Boot

Linux on Ethernut 5
This document describes how to
compile an own kernel, based on the Yocto Project, for Ethernut 5

Linux Command-Line Tool nutpwrman
This manual describes the
nutpwrman tool for the Linux command-line. Purpose of this tool is
configuration, controlling and monitoring of the Ethernut 5 hardware
features which are connected to the integrated power-manager.
13.02.2014 | 0.07 MB | English

Nut/OS on Ethernut 5
This document explains how to
use Nut/OS as an alternative operating system on Ethernut 5

Nut/OS Software Manual
This document explains how to setup and use Nut/OS

Nut/OS Online Api
Online API reference for Nut/OS

Ethernut 5 Timer/Counters
This document explains how to access counters and timers from Nut/OS

Software and Tools

Nut/OS for Windows
Executable installation for Windows PCs.

Nut/OS for Linux and Mac OS X
Source code package for manual installation on Linux and Mac OS X.

OpenOCD installer 0.5.0 for Windows
Works with parallel printer port
adapters, Amontec Chameleon, Gateworks GW16012 and Turtelizer 2. For
Turtelizer 2 you additionally need to install the following driver.
30.11.2011 | 3.32 MB | English

Turtelizer 2 FTDI driver 2.04.16 for Windows
Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 and Windows 7.
30.11.2011 | 0.82 MB | English

GCC ARM
GNU toolchain for ARM embedded processors

Atmel SAM-BA
Toolchain for programming ARM based Atmel CPUs

Application Examples

Nut/OS Examples
The NutWiki provides a multitude of programming examples for Nut/OS