Re: Ethernet with microcontrollers
Hi,
If you absolutely "must" avoid offloading the Ethernet stuff to a module then, and I hate to say it, PBP probably isn't your best option. I'm certainly no expert on this but having written PBP code for the Wiznet W5100 chip to do DHCP, SMPT, SNTP etc which are all "high level" stuff "on top of" the TCP and UDP protocols (which the W5100 handles in this case) I can tell you that implementing (and using) a full TCP/IP stack in PBP is what I personally would consider a monumental task. Yes, it has been done, at least to some extent. I have not tried it and I agree that it's far from "friendly".
With that said, you're always running the risk of a part getting obsolete forcing a hardware and/or software revision. I don't know if you're building dozens or tens of thousands of this product but I'd try to talk to the people at Lantronix, Tibbo, Wiznet etc to see if you can get an idea of the planned lifetime for the potential product and possibly stock up on it as it approaches EOL so you have time to re-think the situation at that time.
Microchip has a TCP/IP stack for their C-compiler, if you "must" incorporate the Ethernet stuff in the main microcontroller I'd probably read up on that (personally I don't "do" C so I'd be in the shit). Then, if you're redesigning the product to use a new microcontroller perhaps moving to a 32bit one which I'm sure will handle the Ethernet stuff much better than an 8-bit one. But, that too, is indeed a big task. Much bigger than being forced to switch to a different module 5 years down the road I'd think.
/Henrik.
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