PS2000A

P&S DataCom Corporation has developed an internet-enabling technology, called WebChip™, for any microcontroller-based application. This technology includes a silicon chip (the WebChip™) and a gateway. The WebChip™ unifies the microcontroller application data with the gateway networking capability. Object-oriented techniques are used to map any microcontroller application data in a structured, generic fashion into a format usable by gateway intelligence. This object mapping and communication is achieved using two open protocols. The MCUnet™ protocol handles data communication between the microcontroller and the WebChip™, while the MCUap™ protocol handles data communication between the WebChip™ and the gateway.

Real-time microcontroller data, transferred through the WebChip™ to the gateway, can be made available anywhere on the Internet with supervision and management control. The gateway maintains the Internet connectivity capability for numerous WebChip™-enabled devices. This affords users a single point of contact for monitoring and controlling multiple devices, with less administrative overhead than that required by a user-to-device direct solution. Users can potentially access any and all devices via the Internet. However, device owners and users require some control and limitation of access to their devices. The gateway provides this device management, security management, and network management for Internet-connected devices. These supervisory functions extend basic Internet connectivity with real-world requirements. Practical device use over the Internet necessitates inclusion of these essential  anagement features.

The PS2000A is one of the members of the WebChip^TM family. It is a network communication controller designed to connect any MCU ("Microcontroller") application system to a gateway. It therefore can serve as a bridge for an intelligent device (any electronic device that contains an MCU) to easily connect to the Internet. The communication between the MCU application system and the PS2000A conforms to the MCUnet^TM1.0 Protocol, and the communication between the network server and the PS2000A conforms to the MCUap^TM1.0 protocol. A typical application of the PS2000A is shown in Figure 1.