MAC to MAC connectivity

Feb 12, 2008 2 Replies

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Steve 18 years ago

Hi,

As part of a design that I'm investigating, I am looking at connecting a number of FPGA based MACs to a dedicated broadcom switch chip. The difficulty with this is that to interface both chips, I need to have two closely coupled and redundant PHY .

Is it possible to connect two MAC (SGMII) directly point-to-point, bypassing the PHY completely? Or is it necessary to have at least some PHY functionality, even if it is a point to point link?

Kind regards,

Stephen

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Arlet Ottens 18 years ago

I suppose it works.

Cross connect RXD[] to TXD[]. Cross connect RX_DV to TX_EN, and provide a 125 MHz clock (could be supplied from another FPGA pin)

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karthikbalaguru 18 years ago

Generally, It should be possible if you have your MAC with some basic PHY within it. Some PHYs are not replacable and theire requirement is a must. I think, PHYs cannot be bypassed so easily.

Karthik Balaguru

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