Migrating from 10 Base-T to 100 Base-T Ethernet...

Hi John,

The SA1110 StrongARM part has gone end of life as well. Perhaps now's a good time to start with a white board? My company has a product that has an SA1110 in it as well.... so I understand the firmware/software investment in a particular architecture.

If you're using an OS.... I believe it will take care of the differences between the speeds. At least Linux will....

Edwin

Hi Edwin, I know the StrongArm is in end of life. I'd love to bump up to the XScale, but it isn't going to happen in the next release of our hardware unfortunately.

As for Linux taking care of the differences in speeds: I am hoping that whatever hardware/chip replacement suggested to bump up to 100 Mbps would have a device driver already set up for the SA-1110 running Linux...I was hoping to not have to re-invent that wheel. Yes, we're running Linux, but that only helps out if such a device driver already exists.

Any other pointers out there?

TIA...again, John

You will not find a drop-in upgrade, since there are virtually no non-PCI 10/100 controllers on the market. Here are the only ones I've found:

SMSC:

The Asix chip is about 2 years on the market, and very close to NE2000 compatible, so you will find lots of drivers available with source. (The driver will require some tweaking, mostly because of a PHY init bug and the extra 100Mb settings.)

SMSC has been around a while, but I see it mentioned even less often than the Asix. The Davicom seems to be a clone of the SMSC chip.

But the real question is... what's pushing you to upgrade to 10/100? Is it a marketing thing, or is there an issue you've run into (which might have an alternate solution)?

Best of luck, Richard

Ahh yes...the real question. No, it isn't a marketing thing. Our box interfaces to another box that recently bumped up to 100 Mbps, and thus we were investigating the possibility of us migrating as well. Our hope was to have this last revision of hardware be the last one, and thus any potential expandibility issues for the future were being investigated. We aren't currently even approaching a multi-megabit throughput (there are bursts of course that could probably take advantage of the higher speed, but shaving a microsecond here and there isn't really that important in this application).

I think I have my answer: there isn't a drop-in solution, but there are a couple of solutions that would maybe require a few weeks of hacking away to get them working.

Thanks to all for the help!

John

Well, I'm still unclear on the need for 10/100, since the 100Mb device should auto-negotiate to 10Mb just fine (e.g., if you used a crossover cable).

However, here's a hack that requires more hardware, less coding, meets the need, and any marketing value as well...

Stick a 10/100 switch controller chip between the CS8900 and the external jack. Configure the CS8900 for full-duplex operation and let the switch controller negotiate the external connection at 10/100 full/half.

Full-duplex can be a big performance boost, but it's a static setting for 10Mb chips - you can really only turn it on when you *know* it's connecting to a switch port at 10/full. By adding the switch internally, you get a performance boost, keep the existing driver code, and gain an upgraded external interface.

The switch chips I've seen are virtually turn-key, so it might be worth a look. (E.g., Realtek RTL8309SB) I've seen some consumer products that even did auto-crossover, which would be a neat add-on if the switch supports it.

Have fun! Richard