WiFi reference

News

Green Hills Software has introduced a WiFi reference platform for developers of electronic products that incorporate wireless LAN interfaces based on IEEE 802.11 standards.

Green Hills Software has introduced a WiFi reference platform for developers of electronic products that incorporate wireless LAN (WLAN) interfaces based on IEEE 802.11 standards (WiFi).

The Green Hills WiFi reference platform addresses a range of applications, from resource-constrained mobile devices through mission-critical network infrastructure equipment. Accordingly, it can be configured to use Green Hills Software’s TCP/IP stacks, both of which are available in IPv4 or dual-mode IPv4/IPv6 configurations.

It can also be used with either of Green Hills Software’s royalty-free embedded operating systems: the velOSity microkernel for resource-constrained and cost-sensitive devices, or the memory-protected INTEGRITY real-time operating system for devices with high security and protection requirements.

The initial release of the WiFi reference platform uses an Intel XScale processor and Conexant PRISM 802.11a/b/g chipset. A software-only WiFi solution is also available for users who prefer their own custom hardware platforms.

All the latest WiFi security mechanisms will be available for the Green Hills Software reference platform, including: Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), WiFi Protected Access with Pre-Shared Keys (WPA-PSK) and the IEEE 802.1x Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP), including Transport Level Security (EAP-TLS), Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol (PEAP), and MD5 authentication.

These WiFi security protocols complement the IP security solutions available today for Green Hills Software’s stacks, including IPv6/IPsec, Internet Key Exchange (IKE), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), Secure Shell (SSH), Firewall, Crypto and more.

The WiFi software solution with WEP and WPA-PSK is available now for ARM, Blackfin, Coldfire, MIPS, PowerPC, and x86 processors. 802.1x supplicant supporting EAP-TLS, EAP-MD5 and PEAP is planned for availability in May 2005, with additional security protocols to follow. The reference hardware based on an Intel XScale processor and Conexant 802.11a/b/g chipset will be available in April 2005.