APPLICATIONS OF XPORT EMBEDDED DEVICE SERVER DEMONSTRATE HOW HETWORKING CAPABILITIES CAN BE REDUCED
23 April 2003 - Lantronix

At the company's booth (#926), Lantronix will demonstrate how XPort has added network connectivity to a diverse range of applications, including multimedia projectors and an automotive concept vehicle. In addition, a third-party developer of embedded graphical user interfaces called Amulet Technologies will display how its new GUI module works with XPort to offer more effective remote control, configuration and feedback of connected devices.

'Given the relative newness of XPort and the fact that our development kits have only been circulating for a matter of weeks, we are extremely excited to see how quickly our technology is being used to add network connectivity for third-party applications,' said Geoffrey Boyce, executive vice president of marketing at Lantronix. 'Using the XPort's highly integrated hardware and software platform, manufacturers will enhance their profitability by significantly reducing the engineering risk and cost associated with adding networking capabilities to their products.'

On the audio/visual front, Lantronix has been customized to connect a full line of liquid crystal display multimedia projectors from a well-established display brand to a network using a serial to Ethernet connection for remote access and control. The demonstration at the show will highlight how users can query a projector via the Web to access important information such as its model number, serial number, location, cumulative lamp hours, and cumulative operating hours. In the demo, the projector can be operated through a Web browser if a remote control is lost or stolen.

For home and automotive automation, Visteon Corporation, a tier-one automotive supplier, uses Lantronix SYS technology in a unique concept vehicle that integrates its onboard and home systems. For the demonstration, a small scale mock home that includes networked thermostats, a security camera, lighting and consumer audio/video gear is wirelessly accessed through the nearby concept vehicle. Integrated into the vehicle's instrument panel, touch-screen controls and a biometric fingerprint reader facilitate authenticated access to operate the off-board home system. As part of the demo, XPort has been integrated into a thermostat system within the home that interacts with the vehicle's controls.

In a demonstration of graphical user interfaces for embedded systems, XPort has been integrated with embedded LCD and chipset technology from Amulet Technologies. This technology is an ideal production solution for developers of embedded systems products and portable or mobile digital devices that use GUIs to convey information and interact with human operators in applications such as medical instruments (e.g., the readout on a heart monitor) and other industrial equipment. For the demo, using XPort in multiple devices, Amulet Technologies will show how its GUI technology can link the devices to form an Intranet for a custom application.

'The XPort targets anyone who designs electronic solutions and needs to enhance those solutions by adding networking capabilities for greater management and control,' said Boyce. 'All of our product demonstrations at ESC illustrate how XPort can be custom-tailored for highly specialized applications and integrated into a diverse range of products to provide network connectivity.'

To eliminate the complexity of creating a network enabling solution, the XPort provides a complete, integrated solution that includes a 10Base-T / 100Base-TX Ethernet connection, a reliable and proven operating system, an embedded Web server, flexible firmware, a full TCP/IP protocol stack, email alerts and optional 128-bit standards-based encryption. Everything designers need to add network connectivity is incorporated into the XPort's compact design to enable them to 'drop' the XPort onto a simple circuit board with a minimum of engineering, dramatically reducing their time to market.

'Using XPort device server enabled us to significantly reduce our time to market because all of the items that are potential pitfalls in the development process, such as security, EMI shielding, and field upgradeability, are already incorporated into XPort,' said Johannes Rietschel, CEO of Barix. Barix is embedding XPort into the Barionet, a universal remote I/O device with a large selection of common interfaces, such as RS-232 and RS-485, analog and digital inputs and outputs, relays, and serial busses, enabling network connectivity for almost any consumer, commercial or industrial application. 'The XPort was ideal for Barionet because of its size, it is the smallest embedded device server on the market. For us to create such a small device ourselves would have required expensive special tooling and a lot of time invested in finding miniature components that met our requirements for reliability as well.'

According to Boyce, the XPort addresses the classic make-versus-buy question that all manufacturers must face when adding networking capabilities to their products. 'Manufacturers do not need to spend upwards of 48 'person-months' and hundreds of thousands of dollars in development time becoming an expert on Ethernet and writing an IP stack when they can simply purchase an integrated solution from Lantronix. We have taken the complexity out of developing a network-enabling solution and made it amazingly simple by doing it all for them,' said Boyce.

An XPort Development Kit is available to provide a quick and cost-effective way to evaluate the product. The kit can enable manufacturers to jumpstart their development work by providing the following items: a circuit board assembly with the XPort, a power supply, configuration options, status LEDs and an RS232 serial interface for an easy connection to a PC. A reset circuit with a push-button reset, status LEDs and a timer circuit are also available. For more information on receiving an XPort Development Kit, contact an authorized Lantronix manufacturing representative.

Amulet Technologies is a privately held, fabless semiconductor company that is dedicated to developing integrated circuits to supplant costly software development in embedded systems. The company was founded upon the revolutionary idea to provide a simpler, faster, more flexible method to program Graphical User Interfaces for embedded systems products. Amulet targets developers of embedded systems products and portable or mobile digital devices that utilize graphical user interfaces to convey information and interact with human operators. For more information, please visit http://www.amulettechnologies.com

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