FPGA-Board for Ethernet

[bankoo]

Hi,
I am searching a FPGA board for a project where i have to connect an twisted pair cable to a FPGA and send&receive packages on a pc. So it will look like this
switch <-> FPGA Board <-> PC
UDP will be enough because I dont need any further information from the packages.
It will be a 100Mbit/s Ethernet but no standard ethernet like 100base-T. (different coding PAM-3)
Do you think a normal Board with Spartan-3 will be enough? Its shameful to say but, I´ve never worked with FPGAs so I am asking here.

Thank you very much.
best regards,
banko

 

[Gabor]

On 10/4/2012 10:38 AM, bankoo wrote:

Hi,
I am searching a FPGA board for a project where i have to connect an twisted pair cable to a FPGA and send&receive packages on a pc. So it will look like this
switch <-> FPGA Board <-> PC
UDP will be enough because I dont need any further information from the packages.
It will be a 100Mbit/s Ethernet but no standard ethernet like 100base-T. (different coding PAM-3)
Do you think a normal Board with Spartan-3 will be enough? Its shameful to say but, I´ve never worked with FPGAs so I am asking here.

Thank you very much.
best regards,
banko

If you don't want to spend a lot of money on tools, I'd recommend
any board (with Ethernet) that comes with a device-locked license
for the Embedded Edition of ISE. This gives you access to LWIP
(light-weight IP) and is likely to come with enough demo apps to
make your life easier, whether you intended to use an embedded
processor or not.

-- Gabor

 

You might look at Arrow Electronics' BeMicro SDK with usb, 10/100 enet, SD card, MDDR RAM, and a 22K LE Cyclone 4E FPGA, for the peasantly sum of $79. All in a "memory stick" form factor, with an expansion connector on the end. It is intended for developing applications around their NIOS soft processor, but is perfectly useable as an ordinary FPGA.

Andy

 

On Thursday, October 4, 2012 10:38:04 AM UTC-4, bankoo wrote:

Hi,

I am searching a FPGA board for a project where i have to connect an twisted pair cable to a FPGA and send&receive packages on a pc. So it will look like this

switch <-> FPGA Board <-> PC

UDP will be enough because I dont need any further information from the packages.

It will be a 100Mbit/s Ethernet but no standard ethernet like 100base-T. (different coding PAM-3)

Do you think a normal Board with Spartan-3 will be enough? Its shameful to say but, I´ve never worked with FPGAs so I am asking here.



Thank you very much.

best regards,

banko

Spartan 3 or Spartan 6 will work. Try digilentinc.com

Darol Klawetter

 

Sorry I was not at work the last days. Thank you very much for the answers and your care.
I will do as you say and look for a board with Xilinx ISE.
The Diligent Boards are looking good.
I think it will be the Spartan 3E Starter Board:
http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,792&Prod=S3EBOARD
Or the Atlys™ Spartan-6 FPGA Development Board
http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,836&Prod=ATLYS

Do I need an Gigabit-Ethernet PHY?
Do I need 2 RJ-45 Interfaces? Or can I connect the UTP Cable directly the the FPGA pins. Or something like UTP to RJ-45 and the PC with usb?
For further Information about the used ethernet you can look at the Figure 5 its the Broadcom Ethernet
http://itersnews.com/?p=10541


Thank you very much
Banko

 

[Joel Williams]

On 10/10/12 1:10 AM, bln5320@googlemail.com wrote:

Sorry I was not at work the last days. Thank you very much for the answers and your care.
I will do as you say and look for a board with Xilinx ISE.
The Diligent Boards are looking good.
I think it will be the Spartan 3E Starter Board:
http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,792&Prod=S3EBOARD
Or the Atlys™ Spartan-6 FPGA Development Board
http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,836&Prod=ATLYS

Do I need an Gigabit-Ethernet PHY?

If you're doing gigabit Ethernet, then yes. Note that most gigabit PHYs
also work at 10 and 100 Mbps.

Do I need 2 RJ-45 Interfaces?

Depends on what you want to do with it.

Or can I connect the UTP Cable directly the the FPGA pins.

You can certainly connect a UTP cable directly to an FPGA (like you
could with any piece of wire), but it might not do what you want. High
speed Ethernet usually uses a parallel interface (GMII/MII, etc.) that
the PHY converts to one of the physical layer Ethernet standards. Most
FPGAs aren't capable of generating the correct logic levels necessary
for Ethernet directly, which is why you need a PHY.

Or something like UTP to RJ-45 and the PC with usb?

Not sure what you mean by that!

For further Information about the used ethernet you can look at the Figure 5 its the Broadcom Ethernet
http://itersnews.com/?p=10541

If you want to use Automotive Ethernet, I would recommend that you use
an Automotive Ethernet PHY. They're not very common on FPGA development
boards, so you might need to do some PCB design for this.

Joel

 

Sorry I was not at work the last days. Thank you very much for the answers and your care.

I will do as you say and look for a board with Xilinx ISE.

The Diligent Boards are looking good.

I think it will be the Spartan 3E Starter Board:

http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,792&Prod=S3EBOARD

Or the Atlysďż˝ Spartan-6 FPGA Development Board

http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,400,836&Prod=ATLYS



Do I need an Gigabit-Ethernet PHY?



If you're doing gigabit Ethernet, then yes. Note that most gigabit PHYs

also work at 10 and 100 Mbps.



Do I need 2 RJ-45 Interfaces?



Depends on what you want to do with it.



Or can I connect the UTP Cable directly the the FPGA pins.



You can certainly connect a UTP cable directly to an FPGA (like you

could with any piece of wire), but it might not do what you want. High

speed Ethernet usually uses a parallel interface (GMII/MII, etc.) that

the PHY converts to one of the physical layer Ethernet standards. Most

FPGAs aren't capable of generating the correct logic levels necessary

for Ethernet directly, which is why you need a PHY.



Or something like UTP to RJ-45 and the PC with usb?



Not sure what you mean by that!



For further Information about the used ethernet you can look at the Figure 5 its the Broadcom Ethernet

http://itersnews.com/?p=10541



If you want to use Automotive Ethernet, I would recommend that you use

an Automotive Ethernet PHY. They're not very common on FPGA development

boards, so you might need to do some PCB design for this.



Joel

Thank you.
I've got an automtive phy now, so i have to implement the MAC Layer on the FPGA and thats it. I've found the opencores at opencores.org

So Thank you very much