Ethernet 10/100 Mbps card design from scratch !

[hoalanhuong]

salvaging transformers

Hallo,

I'm a new member here. I just start a project on designing an Ethernet Card from scratch (including electronic schema, MAC+PCI cores study,...). Now i'm in document gathering and project planning phase. So it would be very nice if any one could share me docs (case study, white papers, report,..), url,... helpfull to the project of mine.

Thanks for reading.
hoalanhuong

 

[dainis]

For start looking:
https://www.opencores.org/browse.cgi/by_category

 

[IanP]

Just to satisfy my curiosity: what is the reason you want to design a network card whereas you can by one for less then $5 ???

 

[hoalanhuong]

For start looking:
h**p://www.opencores.org/browse.cgi/by_category

Thanks Danis for the reply, I already visited opencores, but there only have IP cores for subsystems (MAC, PCI,...). What I would need is some kind of total guide line, case study, reports that could show the alike framework to do that. Do you have any ?

Regards,
hoalanhuong

Added after 3 minutes:

Just to satisfy my curiosity: what is the reason you want to design a network card whereas you can by one for less then $5 ???

Hi IanP,

The reason is for study, not for use. And may be I will put some special functions on that card.

 

[banh]

wow tough job i guess...
how's your progress btw?

 

[andy1]

Do you plan to build the transceiver also? That would be tough with all the analog circuit design and all.

Or do you plan to use the transcevier off the shelf?

By saying building from scratch do you mean writing HDL codes, synthesize, or would you use parts off the shelf and put together a board?

By the way, are you as pretty as your name

 

[hoalanhuong]

Do you plan to build the transceiver also? That would be tough with all the analog circuit design and all.

No, I will make a selection on existed ones available on the market. Do you have any suggestion?

By saying building from scratch do you mean writing HDL codes, synthesize, or would you use parts off the shelf and put together a board?

Yes, it's right ! Do you know any project alike ? The most important for me is a complete framework for reference !

By the way, are you as pretty as your name

Are you Vietnamese ?

 

[andy1]

I work mostly at the board level so I can't help much with what you're trying to do. I don't know if you're on your own on this project or you work as a team but it looks like this project is certainly not for the faint of heart. I would start with IEEE 802.3 standard since that's where you'll find all you need to start coding for the MAC.

Most ethernet controllers have the MAC and the PHY layer integrated into one IC, but you can use National Semi DP83847 (but any other will do) to interface to your MAC. As for the transformer, try those from Pulse Technitrol.

Although there are a lot of logic design involved, a lot of ethernet stuffs involved with analog so you have to be ready for all that stuffs too. When you run signal at 100mhz, it's really not simple. Actually, I don't think 100ms ethernet run at 100mhz since it uses mlt-3 encoding which has a maximum frequency of about 37mhz but it is still pretty high.

By the way, I am martian but just happen to speak Vietnamese.

 

[IanP]

Here is an interesting site on similar subject.
They also think that it may be worth salvaging transformers from an old Ethernet PC card..

**broken link removed**