The IXP4XX network processors provide a USB 1.1 device interface. This interface allows an IXP4XX network processor-based platform to connect to a PC host. The USB access component provides a device-driver layer to this hardware. This component does not cover the USB 1.1 host device available on the IXP45X and IXP46X network processors. A USB 1.1 host controller driver is currently under development. The USB 1.1 device API provides the following device functions:

• USB 1.1 device hardware initialization

• Data transfer to and from all endpoints (control, bulk, and isochronous)

• Stall an endpoint

The USB access component provides a very low-level interface to the device. The Intel IXP400 software provides a USB device driver compliant with the Remote Network Driver Interface Specification (RNDIS) for VxWorks, Linux, and Windows CE. The RNDIS is a Microsoft specification (Microsoft 2004). This driver provides the device side of an RNDIS connection. Microsoft XP provides the host side implementation of the RNDIS driver. When you connect a PC to an IXP4XX network processor-based platform via a USB cable, the driver provides an emulated Ethernet interface over the USB cable. The generic communication device class (CDC) driver was not available when Intel first developed the RNDIS device driver, so it was not implemented. The RNDIS driver is provided in ixp400_xscale/src/codelets/usb.

The RNDIS device driver provides the following features for each of the operating systems supported:

• Provides a native Ethernet type device driver for the operating system. The interface connects to the...