emBetter Webserver

Target Applications

Everyone knows how to use the Internet via PC-based systems, but, for many applications, desktop, laptop or industry PCs are much too expensive. The same applies to using 32-bit microcontrollers with operating systems.

The electronics used in many devices in industry and in consumer goods (such as vending machines ("coffee machine in the Internet"), clothing with microelectronic intelligence ("smart clothes"), and also industrial applications used, for example, for shipping and logistics or in production plants) should only cost a few dollars.

For reasons of cost, the need is to use minicomputers (microcontrollers), but their 8-bit or 16-bit architectures give them very limited computing power, which makes specialized implementations essential.

Protocol Suite

Our emBetter TCP/IP protocol suite is optimized for use in 16-bit and small microcontrollers. Its modular structure provides an efficient basis for creating a network connection. It consists of these independent modules:

Poartability

The project complies with the ANSI-C standard, and minimizes its use of library functions, making it portable to a multitude of other compilers and microcontrollers. It is modified to suit the hardware in a C file and header file, making the effort required much easier to assess. Modifications to suit a modem's instruction set are made in a dedicated header file. The emBetter protocol stack is now in use in numerous microcontroller platforms and development environments and compilers.

• Altera NIOSI und II
• ARM7TDMI
• Freescale HCS12, NE64
• Freescale ColdFire MCF5235, MCF52235
• Infineon C167
• NEC V850
• Renesas M16C und Renesas H8S
• Texas Instruments MSP430

Ethernet

Provides numerous drivers for Ethernet controllers, in particular OpenCore MAC, SMSC91C111 and CS8900 controllers.

Modem

A modem connection can also be established using the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). This enables both analog and also GPRS modems to be used. In many cases, GPRS modems can provide an extremely cheap, yet flexible, connection to the Internet. To date, the following modems have been integrated:

• Standard Analog Modem 56k über serielle Schnittstelle (RS232)
• Socket Modem z.B. Multitec 5600 SMI
• GPRS Modem, z.B. Motorola g20
• ISDN Modems

Extendibility

As emBetter provides the winsock interface functions (init, open, close, read, write) between the protocol layers, protocols such as Domain Name Service, IPSec or SSL can be added, and we are currently working on this. It is also possible to program other physical media such as Industrial Ethernet or UMTS.

If the target hardware used is low-performance, individual protocols and functions such as ICMP or SMTP can be switched off before compiling.

In addition, the required memory capacities can be adjusted to maximize the use of resources. All parameters are described in the project's text file. Even the original source version of the emBetter implementation used very little code and memory.

Speed

We have also optimized the performance of the protocol stack in different projects. On a 50MHz NIOS processor we achieved a data throughput rate at TCP level of 34 MBit/s. Additional optimizations are possible.

A pre-prepared 5-in-1 package integrates the processor, a powerful Ethernet controller, the emBetter TCP/IP stack and the webserver.

Services

Providing the standardized network functionality only creates the starting point for a successful product. The next step is to efficiently tailor the transfer parameters to suit the particular application, after integration in the overall system. For this reason the stzedn (Steinbeis transfer center for embedded design and networking) offers development services, both for software integration and also for hardware-related system solutions.