[En-Nut-Discussion] News on Ethernut 5

[Harald Kipp]

Hi,

Ulrich Prinz wrote:
> Good question...

Indeed. ;-)


> Michael is asking me that twice a week. Harald?
> 
> Am 16.03.2010 13:58, schrieb Lars Mogensen:
>> I am looking for a board with properties like the Ethernut 5. How far has it
>> come to production/testing?

I think that this board had been the most troublesome development in the
Ethernut project's history. The first discussions started late 2007 and
the first schematic had been published in May 2008. It took Atmel nearly
2 years to have the AT91SAM9XE available in quantities.

While having the CPU in stock now, SMSC decided to discontinue the
LAN8700. We just finished a redesign, using the LAN8710. Furthermore
Samsung stopped the 64MB SDRAM, which we tested on the prototypes. Last
not least, due to the financial crises the chip companies lowered their
production quantities in last year and many chips, which never had been
critical, are now on backorder for months.

Fortunately Ute managed to get almost all original parts or compatible
replacements. The final prototypes should be available next week and if
everything works as expected, we will immediately initiate the
production of a few hundred. This will still take about 8 weeks, though.

Frankly: I've announced the availability so often, that I can hardly
believe myself. :-( The real trouble is, that not only our company
invested some time and money in this board.

Harald