ethernet phy or mac

You probably need both.

The PHY is the magic interface to the wire.

The MAC is a digital interface that makes it all look like registers to some cpu. It might be on the PHY chip or it might be a fpga module.

-- Mike Treseler

Colin,

A MAC+PHY costs more then a PHY, but you save the MAC IP cost and gates in the FPGA. It is a good alternative to consider.

Xilinx has a MicroBlaze interface to this type of device, called the EPC. They also have an application note that describes how to use it:

The app note uses a piece of hardware that is no longer available (Avnet P160 Comm 3 module), but you can look at the Spartan-3 Mini- Module which also has the 91C111 MAC+PHY.

Bryan

col> Hi

Bryan

Thanks for your reply, as a result I've made a much better job of searching the xilinx website.

Colin

Although one would logically expect that to be the case, in my experience it isn't always true. I suspect it has to do with the high volume in which PCI Ethernet MAC/PHY chips are used in PCs.

For instance, at one time a Realtek 10/100 MAC/PHY was quoted at a lower price than the Realtek 10/100 standalone PHY, in the same quantity. I don't know if that's still the case.