WIZnet Co., Ltd.
 | |
| Private | |
| ISIN | ๐ |
| Industry | Semiconductors |
| Founded ๐ | 1998 |
| Founder ๐ | Lee Yun-Bong |
| Headquarters ๐๏ธ | , South Korea |
Area served ๐บ๏ธ | |
Key people | Lee Yun-Bong (Founder & CEO) |
| Products ๐ | Ethernet chips, ioNIC, SiP, modules |
| Members | |
Number of employees | |
| ๐ Website | wiznet |
| ๐ Address | |
| ๐ telephone | |
WIZnet Co., Ltd. is a South Korean fabless semiconductor company founded in 1998.[1][2] The company specializes in TCP/IP offload engine (TOE) technology, which implements the TCP/IP protocol stack in hardware logic rather than software.[3]
The company later expanded its ecosystem through a partnership with the Raspberry Pi Foundation.[4]
History
Early years and founding (1998โ2001)
WIZnet was founded in May 1998 as a university spin-off from the network laboratory at Pusan National University.[2][5] In 2001, the company commercialized the 'iEther-3100', a chip that implemented the TCP/IP protocol in hardware.[2]
Growth and spin-off (2002โ2013)
In 2002, WIZnet formed a strategic alliance with the multinational semiconductor company Atmel to jointly develop a next-generation System-on-Chip (SoC) that combined WIZnet's TCP/IP technology with Atmel's microcontroller technology.[6] In the same year, the Asian electronics technology journal EDN Asia named WIZnet's team leader, Kim Gu-hwan, as 'Innovator of the Year'.[7]
In March 2013, co-founder Kim Gu-hwan spun off the energy control business division to establish Gridwiz, a company specializing in smart grid solutions.[5][8] This spin-off allowed WIZnet to further concentrate on its core competency of semiconductor chips for Internet of Things (IoT) communication.
Technology
WIZnet's core technology is the TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE), which implements the main functions of the TCP/IP protocol stack in hardware logic. While conventional software stacks place a significant computational burden on the host microcontroller (MCU), WIZnet's hardware-based approach allows the chip to perform network processing tasks independently, greatly reducing the MCU's load.[9]
This architecture offers advantages not only in performance stability but also in security. Because the TCP/IP stack is fixed in hardware, it is inherently difficult for attackers to exploit software vulnerabilities. Monnit, an American IoT gateway company, describes WIZnet's hardware TCP/IP stack in its product security brief as an "unattackable hardware network engine," noting its effectiveness in preventing Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks.[3]
In electronics engineering communities, WIZnet chips are praised for making it easy to add network functionality by offloading the TCP/IP stack to hardware. However, some limitations are also noted, such as non-standard SPI behavior in early chips, relatively high power consumption, and a limited number of concurrent sockets.[10][11]
Products and ecosystem
In addition to its core Ethernet controller chips (such as the W5100, W5500, and W6100), WIZnet offers network modules that integrate peripheral components, as well as Serial-to-Ethernet (S2E) converter modules.[12]
The adoption of its W5100 chip in the official Arduino Ethernet Shield established it as a 'de facto standard' within the global maker and developer community.[13] The company has since strengthened its relationship with the open-source hardware ecosystem by collaborating with the Raspberry Pi Foundation to release the W55RP20, a single chip that integrates Raspberry Pi's RP2040 MCU with WIZnet's W5500 Ethernet controller.[4][14]
References
- โ "ใ์์ฆ๋คํธ ๊ธฐ์ ์ ๋ณด" [WIZnet Co., Ltd. Company Information]. Saramin (in ํ๊ตญ์ด). Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "์นฉ ํ๋๋ก ์ธํฐ๋ท์ ์ ์ํฉ๋๋ค" [We connect to the internet with a single chip]. The Chosun Ilbo (in ํ๊ตญ์ด). 2001-03-01. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ 3.0 3.1 "Ethernet Gateway 4 Security Brief". Monnit Support. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ 4.0 4.1 "Interview with WIZnet". Fine Engineering. 2024-11-04. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ 5.0 5.1 "์๋์ง ๊ด๋ฆฌ์ '๋ง๋ฒ์ฌ' ๊ฟ๊พธ๋ ๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๋์์ฆ ๊น๊ตฌํ ๋ํ" [Gridwiz CEO Kim Gu-hwan, dreaming of becoming a 'wizard' of energy management]. Ilyo Weekly (in ํ๊ตญ์ด). 2015-05-27. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ "์์ฆ๋คํธ, ์ํธ๋ฉ๊ณผ ์ ํด...SoC ๊ณต๋๊ฐ๋ฐ" [WIZnet partners with Atmel... for joint SoC development]. Electronic Times (in ํ๊ตญ์ด). 2002-10-01. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ "์์ฆ๋คํธ ๊น๊ตฌํํ์ฅ, EDN็ด '์ฌํด์ ํ์ ์์' ์์" [WIZnet's Team Leader Kim Gu-hwan Wins 'Innovator of the Year' Award from EDN]. Electronic Times (in ํ๊ตญ์ด). 2002-09-04. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ "์ค๋ฆฌ์ฝ๋ฐธ๋ฆฌ 'ํ์ด ์ ํฌ์๋'์ฒ๋ผ ๋ฐ์ ๋์ ์ฌํ์ ๋ฐํํ๊ณ ํ" [Like Silicon Valley's 'Pay It Forward,' I want to give back to society the help I received]. Electimes (in ํ๊ตญ์ด). 2023-06-08. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ "TCP Offload Engine (TOE)". Chelsio Communications. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ "Anyone used the Wiznet ethernet chips?". EEVblog Forum. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ "The WIZnet W6100 is a chip hardwired for dual-stack IPv6 and IPv4 10/100 Ethernet networking, used to embed IP connectivity into hardware". Reddit. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ "Products". WIZnet. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
- โ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs nameddacomwest_partner - โ "Review WIZnet W55RP20-EVB-Pico". Element14 Community. 2024-12-02. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
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