Elettra involved the development of 802.11b
Wireless Standards complaint device drivers
for a WLAN PCMCIA card based on the Intersil
PRISM II chip set. The requirement here
was to develop a driver that should, in
principle work for any PC Card based on
the PRISM II chip set.
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SWL-2100N PC
Card – This WLAN adapter was a
PCMCIA card with the Intersil PRISM
II chipset at its core. This wireless
adapter is 802.11b standards complaint
and required a similar 802.11b complaint
driver. |
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Bromcom xPDA
- This is a portable device based on
the Dragonball – VZ processor
from Motorola. It has an in-built PCMIA
slot that supports wireless LAN cards. |
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Nucleus PLUS
operating system – This is a real-time,
pre-emptive, multitasking operating
system kernel from Accelerated Technology
Inc. Nucleus PLUS provides features
such as portability, functionality,
usability, and configurability that
make it an easy real-time kernel choice
for a number of tools and CPU’s. |
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Nucleus NET
- Nucleus NET, from Accelerated Technology
Inc. is a set of networking protocols
to provide interoperability between
Nucleus PLUS-based systems and other
TCP/IP or UDP/IP-based systems. It provides
a well defined driver interface for
user supplied drivers, and can support
various MAC layer drivers. |
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The drivers were developed using C under the
SDS Compiler and Debugger environment. Once
the drivers were developed, we carried out
a detailed performance testing phase where
the driver was thoroughly tested against the
platforms mentioned above. This involved using
the low-level debugger to place breakpoints
and modify variable values/parameters that
would simulate different scenarios. Testing
over the Bromcom xPDA involved time-consuming
procedures for determining the Ping statistics,
Transfer Rates and Connection Setup times
between a desktop PC and the PDA across the
wireless adapter.
With a team of one manager, 2 developers,
one QA, and one coordinator, Elettra’s
development and testing phases collectively
spanned over 2 calendar months. ADI’s
sharp expertise and experiences in the embedded
domains enabled timely deliveries and quick
turnarounds. It also gave us an opportunity
to demonstrate our full fledged embedded
testing skills opening up future business
channels in this area.
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Technology Used |
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C |
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SDS Compiler
and Debugger |
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802.11b Specifications |
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