Axis Communications has announced that a new version of the ETRAX system-on-chip will go into production next April. The ETRAX 100LX adds a memory management unit (MMU), USB interface, SDRAM support, and several other enhancements to the already extensive set of features of the existing ETRAX 100. The enhanced device will be fully backwards compatible with the current version.

Like its predecessor, the ETRAX 100LX is based on a proprietary 32-bit RISC core and contains a system's worth of functions suitable for building Internet-ready embedded devices. As with the current ETRAX 100, Axis will support the new system-on-chip device with an extensive Embedded Linux support package (including full source code) plus documentation, developer boards, and reference designs. Thanks to addition of an MMU, the 100LX will use a standard Linux kernel instead of uClinux (an MMU-less Linux kernel).

Functions within the new ETRAX 100LX include:

• 32-bit 100MHz RISC CPU core
  
• Memory interface with SDRAM support
  
• On-chip memory with built-in network boot function
  
• DMA, interrupt, timing controllers
  
• 10/100 Ethernet MAC
  
• USB (host and device)
  
• ATA
  
• 4 high-speed Sync/async serial ports
  
• Dual IEEE-1284 parallel port
  
• Wide SCSI controller
  

Functions new to the ETRAX 100LX (vs. the ETRAX 100) include the MMU, USB, 2-clock cycle multiplication instructions, SDRAM, and synchronous serial ports.

Axis reports that more than one million previous generation ETRAX chips have been sold into a wide range of network-attached devices such as print servers, network cameras, storage servers, and emerging wireless Bluetooth devices.

Engineering samples of the ETRAX 100LX will be available in January, and production quantities will begin shipping in April.

 
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