netX: Firmware Overview

The architecture of our firmware is designed for low-latency and fast response, and the netX hardware has been designed accordingly. As a result, hardware and software fit together perfectly.
The latest netX controllers have their own communication CPU that operates the so called "loadable firmware" – our stack software. This means that reloading the protocol stack is sufficient to adapt your netX chip to a new communication standard.

Each communication protocol firmware has its own release with corresponding maintenance and versioning, so that you always know which version a device operates in the field. The Hardware Abstraction Layer configures the real-time switch inside netX to match all protocol requirements. The data is then divided depending on whether it is standard Ethernet data or real-time data. This means that time-critical I/O data and acyclic data in particular can be processed with priority. Standard Ethernet data, such as from a simple web server as well as HTTP data, are processed via a separate data channel.

The data mapping in the dual port memory is divided into channels according to memory areas. These memory areas can be written or read from your customer application on the netX 90 via the built-in application CPU using the internal DPM interface. Alternatively, you can access the DPM memory and data via the serial or parallel host interface or, in upcoming netX generations, also via PCIe.

On the user side, there is always the same interface called cifX API, regardless of whether you integrate our communication solution as a chip, design-in our embedded modules or use our PC cards. With the cifX API you access the Driver, System Channel and Communication Channel functions and have access to the respective data. You will have this firmware architecture in a similar form as object code in generations 1 and 2 of our netX family (netX 51/52). From generation 3 (netX 90) onwards we provide the communication firmware in its own CPU, so that you as a user can carry out maintenance much more easily.