Providing network connectivity for small appliances: a functionally minimized embedded Web server

There is a strong trend toward embedding Internet capabilities into electronics and everyday appliances. We introduce the results from a research project where we have been working toward implementing a functionally minimized Web server on silicon. Although most embedded Internet appliances will use a microcontroller and software to enable TCP/IP and HTTP support, we argue that there are many applications where a hardware-based approach is more suitable. Our WebChip approach is a family of IPv6-compatible solutions toward the realization of embedded and minimized Web systems. The core parts of the implementation are a C-code library and VHDL code implementation. The solution is tested with an FPGA and can be later embedded into various ASIC chips. We argue that this approach is also commercially viable since the VHDL code can be delivered as an intellectual property block.