NetX™ and NetX Duo™ TCP/IP Protocol Stacks

NetX and NetX Duo are Express Logic’s high-performance implementations of TCP/IP protocol standards. NetX provides a streamlined, IPv4 capable TCP/IP stack, while NetX Duo is Express Logic’s new TCP/IP stack that provides both IPv4 and IPv6 capabilities in a dual-stack product. Both NetX and NetX Duo are fully integrated with ThreadX and are available for all supported processors. NetX and NetX Duo have a unique Piconet™ architecture. Combined with a zero-copy API, they are a perfect fit for today’s deeply embedded applications that require network connectivity.

NetX Duo Features

NetX Duo conforms to RFC standards and offers complete interoperability with devices from other vendors. NetX Duo offers several new capabilities. For the first time, nodes can configure their interface addresses automatically through the Stateless Address Autoconfiguration protocol. Nodes also can use layered structures to enable devices more efficiently to process IPv6 headers. NetX Duo implements the following protocols:

• All IPv4 features available in NetX 5.x
• IPv6 header and extension header processing
• Neighbor Discovery Protocol
• Router Discovery Protocol
• Stateless Address Autoconfiguration
• Duplicate Address Detection

Protocol Components

NetX and NetX Duo provide a complete set of protocol components that comprise the TCP/IP standard, including the following:

• Flexible Packet Management
• Internet Protocol (IP)
• Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
• Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP)
• Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP)
• Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
• User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
• Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

Additional components, including AutoIP, DHCP, DNS, FTP, HTTP, NAT, POP3, PPP, SMTP, SNMP, SNTP, Telnet, TFTP, and a BSD-compatible socket layer, are also available for NetX.

Small Footprint

NetX and NetX Duo are implemented as a C library. Only the features used by the application are brought into the final image. The minimal footprint of NetX is as small as 5KB on CISC processors.

Piconet™ Architecture

Many TCP/IP implementations have a considerable number of function calls sprinkled throughout the packet processing path. Although this is fine for workstation software, it is not acceptable for performance critical embedded applications. The elimination of layered function calls and loosely coupled protocol components is what we call a piconet architecture.

Zero-Copy API

NetX and NetX Duo provide zero-copy TCP/IP communication to eliminate processor cycles consumed by moving data to and from user buffers. This results in very high performance and frees processor cycles back to the application for useful activities.

Flexible Packet Pool Management

The application may create any number of packet pools in any number of memory areas . These zero-copy packets can be linked with packets from the same pool or even a different pool to accommodate larger payloads.

UDP Fast Path™ Technology

Basic UDP packets pass through NetX and NetX Duo without any copying and without any system context switches. Many commercial network stacks process all packets received within a system thread thereby adding a context switch to the packet overhead. In NetXand NetX Duo, simple UDP packets are delivered directly to waiting threads.

BSD Sockets Interface

In addition to the zero-copy, highly-optimized NetX API, NetX also provides a BSD sockets compatible API for applications with legacy BSD application code.

Fast Response

With its non-layering Piconet™ architecture and zero-copy API, NetX and NetX Duo's packet processing speeds are exceptionally fast.

Easy To Use

NetX and NetX Duo are very easy to use. The NetX and NetX Duo API is both intuitive and highly functional. NetX Duo also recognizes and processes NetX API calls for full compatibility. API names are made of real words and not the “alphabet soup” names that are common to other TCP/IP products. Building a NetX or NetX Duo application is easy. Simply include the header file in the application software and link the application objects with the NetX or NetX Duo library. The resulting image is ready for execution – it’s that simple!

No Mysteries

NetX and NetX Duo are delivered with complete C source code so you can see exactly how they operate. If you are used to in-house TCP/IP stacks or had bad experiences with “black box” commercial products, this should be most comforting.

Express Logic Gets You to Market First

Express Logic products are designed for ease-of-use. Everything from well thought out APIs to simple startup procedures help you get up and running in a matter of hours! This coupled with advanced debugger integration, make our products the easy choice to win the race to market!