ARM Microcontroller and Ethernet qestion..

[dani]

Freescale offers ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller with dual speed 10/100 Mbps Ethernet MAC. What is the benefit of that?

Also if a controller like ARM7TDMI from Atmel don't have Ethernet MAC support inbuilt, can we still have access internet to upload the data through tcp/ip.

Where we need ip stack?

A help to clarify the above points will be highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dani...

 

[trevorth]

Some thoughts...
If you don't need the through-put, use 10Mbps as its a slower speed, less hassle for the design.
You may need 100Mbps to shift the data quickly.
You may need to inter-operate with equipment only capable of 10Mbps.

You can still add an IC to provide Ethernet functionality to an existing embedded system[1], OR you could use something like SLIP and a serial port. Ive actually written a TCP/IP stack that did just that. PPP would also be an option.

1- https://www.cirrus.com/en/products/ethernet.html

Above all, let the product requirements drive the end solution.