Wireless Comms Capability Added to Programmable Ethernet I/O Module

The WA1000 “piggy-backs” on top of the EM1000 and communicates via a high-speed SPI interface. The board features an integrated chip antenna and an additional external antenna can also be connected for better range. It implements the 802.11b interface and is fully supported within Tibbo’s BASIC programming environment. Measuring just 37 x 25mm, the new Wi-Fi module incorporates an internal power switch which allows complete power down.

According to Focus EDL’s Managing Director Geoff Philpot, the new Wi-Fi capability is a significant addition to the feature set of the EM1000.

“The EM1000 can significantly reduce system design time and component count in all types of system types including access control, safety, automation, data collection or similar. Wireless communications makes the I/O module even more versatile” says Philpot.

“Serial ports, sensor inputs, relay outputs, card readers and so on can all be connected to the module with few or no additional components.” Says Philpot. The EM1000 interfaces directly to 1000BaseT Ethernet magnetics and features optional ports for future wireless extensions, such as ZigBee and WiFi. Most importantly, it can be programmed in BASIC.” He adds.

To deliver the performance of today’s demanding real-time applications, the EM1000 provides 50 MIPS of processing power, 100BaseT Ethernet and high-speed UARTs (at up to 2MBps), while the multi-process TiOS operating system ensures operational stability and responsiveness not always found even on larger and much more expensive systems.

The EM1000 is programmed using an event-driven, object-based version of BASIC. A single PC application is used for code editing and cross-debugging that does not rely on any additional hardware.

Other features include 256/512/1024K flash disk, real-time clock with battery, high-speed parallel slave port, 50 general purpose I/O lines and built-in webserver.