The GPFC abbreviature means "a General Purpose Fieldbus Controller". It exactly expresses the primary design goal.
The GPFC is a pocket book sized single board computer (SBC), which supports various fieldbus connections via the IndustryPack(R) I/O interface. A number of commercially available plug-on IP modules can be used to configure the GPFC to the application needs.
The GPFC is powered with the Motorola's ColdFire(TM) CPU chip and runs VxWorks(R) operating system from WindRiver Systems. Tornado (TM) toolset from WindRiver is used for software development on host Unix or PC/Windows platforms.
The GPFC is primarily designed for low power embedded applications but can be used as a standalone controller as well. Its modular and scalable architecture enables a number of different configurations to be implemented, ranging in computing and I/O resources. When equipped with an Ethernet interface (IP module), the GPFC becomes a fully functional network device.
The GPFC is designed under the IHEP/DESY joint project.