NECHIP-M is a chip-packaged serial networking module with embedded NECHIP NP7 SOC processor instead of a simple SOC. It has the same function as NEPORT's high-performance embedded networking module, while NECHIP provides wired and wireless networking. Many ways.
Before we compare, we talk about a concept:
SOC: System on a Chip, which is the system on chip. A simple understanding is that the hardware that traditionally requires multiple chips to complete together is designed on one IC.
NECHIP is not just an ordinary SOC which only supports which interfaces or functions, but a complete networked system. It also integrates a huge software system (operating system + protocol stack + application) on one CHIP. This is the SOC+ system that supports almost all network protocols. It is also an industry-recognized high-reliability, high-performance product. At the same time can develop secondary development platform (system is relatively large, the entire secondary development platform development code is more than 10 tens of thousands of lines, feature-rich and powerful, supports up to 5 serial ports, SD / MMC file system, Ethernet, WIFI, GPRS, WCDMA), while a strong technical team provides customers with wired and wireless capabilities to customize to meet more features or special wireless and wired product requirements.
There are many similar IC manufacturers in the world that have introduced SOC single chips with integrated MAC+PHY (mainly in Taiwan and South Korea), but these ICs are all only hardware parts, users need to do original design based on this chip, such as PORT operating system (Many current low-end integrated MAC+PHY SOCs do not support), the completion of the protocol stack (reliable and reliable protocol stack development requires many years of verification), and the development of applications to complete the functions required by customers, this and the traditional chip does not contain MAC There is no difference in the software development of +PHY. The only difference is that you don't need a MAC+PHY chip. Such as Taiwan and South Korea based on the 8-bit MCU core support MAC + PHY chip, and the ordinary ARM core chip. These chips are also SOC but need to be their own software development, although many IC manufacturers say that they can provide the protocol stack code, etc. These materials are from the free protocol stack on the Internet such as UIP, LWIP, etc. The reliability and stability of free resources and verification are all dependent on the customer's own research and development capabilities. If companies that have in-depth research on operating systems and protocol stacks and want to invest in designing these products, of course, it is a better choice, but on the Internet For companies that lack product design and protocol stack research, this is undoubtedly an investment in research and development of the whole bank. As a result of the development, it is totally uncontrollable because the agreements and platforms provided by these IC factories cannot be guaranteed. Some are still GPL, so whether to choose a single hardware SOC when developing a product or to select all systems to complete NECHIP depends on the actual situation, not just the hardware cost of an SOC.
Now that none of the above SOC plants can really design a network system. Integration of IC + network system development team Non-traditional IC design companies can do well. From our contact with these companies' products and ICs, we can understand this point well. Of course, we also hope that there will be more SOCs like NECHIP for everyone to choose from, with more cost-effective products. So we have more options when designing networking solutions for our customers. Customer demand is the focus of IC manufacturers' service.