Echelon FTXL - Manual (Page 19)

FTXL User’s Guide 7
For an FTXL device, you use an Altera Nios II processor as the host processor for
your device’s application and I/O. The Nios II processor runs on an Altera
Cyclone II or Cyclone III FPGA device. The FTXL LonTalk protocol stack
implements layers 3 to 6 of the LonTalk protocol, and the FTXL Transceiver
implements layers 1 and 2, including the physical interface for the L ON W ORKS
communications channel.
The FTXL LonTalk protocol stack includes a communications interface driver for
the parallel link layer that manages communications between the FTXL LonTalk
protocol stack within the Nios II host processor and the FTXL Transceiver. You
need to include the physical implementation of the parallel link layer in your
FTXL device design. However, you do not need to provide the software
implementation of the parallel interface driver because it is included with the
FTXL LonTalk protocol stack, nor can you modify the Echelon-provided
implementation.
For FTXL device development, you use a C or C++ compiler that supports the
Nios II processor. As with ShortStack development, you use the Echelon
LonTalk Interface Developer utility to create the application framework. Your
application uses an ANSI C API, the Echelon LonTalk API, to manage
communications with the FTXL LonTalk protocol stack, FTXL Transceiver, and
devices on the L
ON W ORKS network.
Using an FTXL Transceiver, it is easy to add L ON W ORKS networking to a high-
performance FPGA-based smart device.