ethernet MAC and switch

In my university project i had a little touch with ethernet mac. can you rephrase your question?... i didn't understand the problem.. perhaps i could help..

Guy

hema wrote:

functionality of Ethernet MAC??? In switch controller implementation on FPGA does 4 tranceivers require 4 Ethernet MAC's???if so why??Because the source and the destination systems will have ethernet controller and MAC built in???please answer these questions.It's haunting me.

A switch receive, store and then re-send the packet. (Well, in a store and forward architecture ... it could resen don the fly some packet but that's beside the point).

So essentially it has a "network card" at each of it's port and therefore requires a MAC, that will talk to the PHY and ensure the "on-wire" protocol is respected, check checksum, interpacket gap, send pause frames, ... As a switch needs some "intelligence" to do it's job, it needs this. You can probably use simplified MAC in some aspect but that stills statys a MAC ... (Medium Access Controller -> control what's going on on the wire).

Sylvain

functionality of Ethernet MAC??? In switch controller implementation on FPGA does 4 tranceivers require 4 Ethernet MAC's???if so why??Because the source and the destination systems will have ethernet controller and MAC built in???please answer these questions.It's haunting me.