Ethernet Interface Support More than one board

Support Forum:
   Can the ethernet interface supplied with STAR IP and board support package interface to more than one board. Can you place more than one ML605 on the same ethernet from a single ethernet card from the PC. Is there a way to do this?

Dear Sir,


The current reference design only supports point to point connection. I believe our factory testing unit bought one PCI ethernet card per ML605 and communicate with a different NDIS device in the enumeration. The API is not supporting several devices so you will need to open several


Ideally you want to find a way to add TCP/IP in the firmware, one way or another. For your information, owe have FMC30RF supported on Zedboard. Not sure if that board fits your specs and budget but it has a zynq device (two arm cores in there) and in this specific design we have TCP/IP implemented as it runs on a fast CPU. Then you should be able to communicate through a switch, a router and with several devices.


Another solution would be to implement the LWIP TCP/IP stack on a microblaze and implement/design the data interfaces to transfer data. This is in fact about replacing sip_mac_engine with a sip_microblaze star supporting TCP/IP.


I hope that helps,
Arnaud

Arnaud:
 
     Thanks. So does the sip_microblaze star come with  LWIP TCP/IP stack on a microblaze already. Or does this work have to be done. Is there an example/documentation any where to install and use the sip_microblaze star?

Arnaud:
 
Just to make sure I understand about the ethernet interface:
 
1) You need two pci ethernet interfaces on PC.
2) You need two instances of API toselect different interfaces.
3) Has this been tested?
4) I read in a post that the API can be modified to support talking two multiple interfaces?
5) How much work is that? I realize that is totally unsupported and accept conditions of that.
6) Can I get a copy of the source for API to modify that?

Dear Sir


1) Yes, or a main-board with two Ethernet port, three to keep internet on your box.
2) Correct
3) We have been using FMC104s to test FMC204s but not completely sure about the details, once again this interface is not suited for anything else than offloading snapshots.
4) I remember that, this was about having a different Mac address.
5) It is impossible to tell, we have not carried this modifications ourselves.
6) This is possible, delivered "AS-IS", without source code level support.


I think it would be wise to decide if Ethernet is really suitable for you, what kind of reliability do you expect. Talking to one of our sales engineer will provide you with some engineering feedback.


Best Regards,
Arnaud

Arnaud:
 
     Thanks. So does the sip_microblaze star come with  LWIP TCP/IP stack on a microblaze already. Or does this work have to be done. Is there an example/documentation any where to install and use the sip_microblaze star?

Dear Sir,


This is something that should be implemented on your side, you can also contract 4DSP to do that for you. There is a chapter in the 4FM Getting Started Guide describing how to create/add custom stars in a design. The star will actually be an microblaze system wrapped as a star.


The learning curve around EDK is something  to take into account. And the bandwidth will not be higher because a microblaze processor runs slow; A TCP/IP stack needs CPU power in order to be efficient.


The LWIP TCP/IP stack comes free of charge with Xilinx EDK I believe the same is true for simple ethernet (10/100). The 1Gbps Ethernet is a paid option I believe.


Please make sure to understand what are the bandwidth requirements, then you have an educated guess on which communication layer should be used. I assume you will need to take the PCIe path.


Best Regards,
Arnaud

Arnaud:
 
    I would like to request the API code AS-IS. What do I need to do to get a copy?

Dear Sir,


No problems, I will prepare you the source code and place that on your company private section on the forum. I will send you an email with actual link to it as well as the password required to extract the archive.


I will not be able to work on that right aware, but I will do that in a couple of hours and you will have that available tomorrow morning when you start your day ( I am based in Amsterdam, Europe and Kyu is based in Austin ).


Best Regards,
Arnaud