Microchip’s magazine “MICRO Solutions” introduce “WIZnet W5200 Ethernet PICtail Plus Board” and explain the benefit of W5200 hardware stack comparing the conventional s/w TCP/IP stack.
You can start developing your IoT designs today with the TWIZ5200 Ethernet PICtail™ Plus Board. It works with a wide variety of PIC MCU development platforms including Explorer 16 (DM240001), PIC32 I/O Expansion Board (DM320002), PICDEM.net 2 (DM163024), PIC18 Explorer (DM183032) and others.
WIZnet provides MPLAB compatible W5200 driver software and ‘C’ code examples (see www.wiznettechnology.com/microchip/) to kickstart network applications that take full advantage of the W5200 hardware features. The W5200 is an Ethernet transceiver with a big advantage. Going beyond the usual specs (auto-negotiation and crossover, LED outputs, Wake-on-LAN), the W5200 adds intelligence that handles Internet protocols (ex: TCP, UDP, etc.) in hardware.
Compared to a traditional software TCP/IP stack, the W5200 hardware stack solution reduces the host MCU processing and memory burden. With the W5200 handling the network chores even a low-cost 8/16-bit PIC® MCU can get online. This means existing (i.e. non-networked) designs can be upgraded with Internet features without an expensive and time consuming system and software redesign. After prototyping a design with PIC MCU and the TWIZ5200 it’s a simple matter to move to production using the WIZ820io which combines the W5200 and RJ-45 jack with magnetics in a tiny easy-to-use module.
For more information: Download the magazine