Tri-Speed Ethernet MAC Core IP

The Tri-Speed Ethernet Media Access Controller (TSMAC) IP core can be configured to operate in either the Gigabit mode (1000Mbits/sec data rate) or the Fast Ethernet mode (10/100 Mbits/sec data rate). Operation in either Gigabit mode or Fast Ethernet mode is selected by setting an internal register bit.

The Tri-Speed Ethernet MAC transmits and receives data between a host processor and an Ethernet network. The main function of the Ethernet MAC is to ensure that the Media Access rules specified in the 802.3 IEEE standard are met while transmitting a frame of data over Ethernet. On the receiving side, the Ethernet MAC extracts the different components of a frame and transfers them to higher applications through the FIFO interface.

The data received from the G/MII interface is first buffered until sufficient data is available to be processed by the Receive MAC (Rx MAC). The Preamble and the Start of Frame Delimiter (SFD) information are then extracted from the incoming frame to determine the start of a valid frame. The Receive MAC checks the address of the received packet and validates whether the frame can be received before transferring it into the FIFO. Only valid frames are transferred into the FIFO. This feature has the following two benefits: the systems need not re-calculate the Frame Check Sequence (FCS) again when the frame is being transmitted, and it also keeps the receive MAC relatively simple. The Tri-Speed MAC, however, always calculates CRC to check whether the frame was received error-free.

On the transmit side, the Tx MAC is responsible for controlling access to the physical medium. The Tx MAC reads data from an external client Tx FIFO, formats this data into an Ethernet packet and passes it to the G/MII module. The Tx MAC reads data from the Tx Client FIFO when the client indicates a packet is available, and the Tx MAC is in its appropriate state. The Tx MAC pre-fixes the Preamble and the Start-of-Frame Delimiter information to the data and appends the Frame Check Sequence at the end of the data. In half-duplex operation, the Tx MAC stores the first 64 bytes of data from the external FIFO in an internal buffer, to be used in re-transmitting data on collisions. The SGMII Easy Connect configuration option adds pins and logic for seamless connection to the Lattice's Gigabit Ethernet PCS IP core.