SAN JOSE, Calif., June 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — GainSpan® Corporation, a leader in low power Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi for the Internet of Things, is showcasing a variety of new and expanded capabilities for its Wi-Fi connectivity solutions at the Freescale Technology Forum Americas (FTF), June 18-21, 2012, in San Antonio, Texas. The capabilities—all of which are being demonstrated using a Freescale Tower System with a Kinetis® processor module—include Serial to Wi-Fi, Limited Access Point (AP) and sensor native apps and will be running on an iPhone.
As numerous applications involve monitoring and control directly from smartphones, GainSpan is demonstrating soft AP capabilities, called limited AP, that allow Wi-Fi enabled smartphones, tablets or PCs to connect directly to a GainSpan Wi-Fi enabled product, greatly improving the user experience. In the demonstration, GainSpan’s Limited AP functionality allows a Tower System mounted sensor board with temperature, light and accelerometer sensors and LEDs to connect directly to a smartphone for monitoring the sensors and controlling the LEDs.
The demonstration utilizes a Freescale TWR-WIFI-G1011MI Tower System module with GainSpan’s GS1011MIP Wi-Fi module on-board, a TWR-SENSOR-PAK sensor module and a Kinetis K60 processor module. The Kinetis MCU collects sensor data and transmits it via a serial connection to the Wi-Fi Tower System module. The module, acting as a Wi-Fi Access Point, will show up in the list of Wi-Fi networks found by the smartphone, and once selected, will allow the smartphone to connect to it. By opening a GainSpan developed native sensor app, sensor values and graphics will be displayed on the smartphone and LEDs on the sensor board can be turned on and off.
GainSpan’s GS1011MIP module mounted on the TWR-WIFI-G1011MI module supports all Wi-Fi functionalities, the networking stack and services including application security (SSL/ TLS), embedded servers (HTTP, DHCP and DNS servers), service and device discovery (mDNS and DNS/SD) and XML parsing. In addition to the customer application, only a small driver or reference code of a few Kbytes is running on the Kinetis K60.
“As microcontroller vendors develop lower power MCUs for Internet of Things applications, such as the Freescale Kinetis L series, our Wi-Fi modules, with their unique and extended networking stack and services, can serve as the ideal companion chip to enable long life battery operated devices,” said Bernard Aboussouan, vice president of marketing, GainSpan. “Our focus is to continually evolve innovative Wi-Fi connectivity solutions designed to meet the needs of our customers.”
The Freescale Technology Forum event showcases where embedded solutions are going and how developers can get there faster, better and easier today. GainSpan’s demonstration takes place June 18 – 21 in the Technology Lab at Pedestal 1013.
About GainSpan Corporation
GainSpan is the leading semiconductor solutions company in low power Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi connectivity for the Internet of Things. Its easy-to-use system-on-chip (SoC), modules and software let customers leverage the large installed base of Wi-Fi access points and smartphones to create connected products for healthcare, smart energy and control/monitoring in industrial, commercial and residential markets. The solutions feature an ultra-low power SoC that consumes a few uA of standby current and goes from standby to active mode in a few ms.
