| CPC G06F 13/28 (2013.01) [G06F 13/362 (2013.01); G06F 13/4022 (2013.01); H04L 12/413 (2013.01); H04L 49/109 (2013.01); H04L 49/351 (2013.01); H04L 69/12 (2013.01); H04L 69/18 (2013.01); G06F 13/4027 (2013.01)] | 8 Claims |

|
1. A monolithic integrated circuit, comprising:
at least one application processor core operable to execute an industrial application and Ethernet connectivity/management code, including standard Ethernet connectivity/management code and industrial Ethernet connectivity/management code;
a real-time processing module configured to support a plurality of industrial Ethernet data link layers;
an interface configured to be coupled to an external non-volatile memory from which the at least one application processor core is configured for execute-in-place processing; and
on-chip RAM having a capacity sufficient to eliminate the need for external RAM in execution by the at least one application processor core of an operating system, the industrial application, and the Ethernet connectivity/management code; and
a soft real-time Ethernet switch, hard real-time Ethernet interfaces, and at least one low-speed fieldbus/comms interface,
wherein the on-chip RAM has a capacity of at least 2 MB, the capacity being sufficient as main execution memory for execution by the at least one application processor core of the operating system, the industrial application, and the Ethernet connectivity/management code,
wherein the at least one application processor core is configured to execute-in-place from the external non-volatile memory at least one of the operating system, the industrial application, and the Ethernet connectivity/management code, and wherein the monolithic integrated circuit is configured such that during execution the on-chip RAM (i) stores at least changeable process data associated with execution of the operating system, the industrial application, and the Ethernet connectivity/management code, and (ii) does not store code associated with each of the operating system, the industrial application, and the Ethernet connectivity/management code that is subject to execution-in-place, and
(i) wherein for each of the operating system, industrial application, and Ethernet connectivity/management code that is configured to be executed in place from the external non-volatile memory, the on-chip RAM stores neither an associated initialized data segment nor associated Ethernet connectivity/management code, or
(ii) wherein for at least one of the operating system, industrial application, and Ethernet connectivity/management code that is configured to be executed-in-place from the external non-volatile memory, the on-chip RAM stores the associated initialized data segment and does not store the associated code.
|