August 2006

Tri-Speed Ethernet MAC Demo Highlights IP Core Capabilities

Lattice provides an easy to use, yet powerful demo to highlight the Tri-Speed Ethernet MAC IP core on a LatticeXP™ Advanced Evaluation Board.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine how many words a demo must be worth! In June, Lattice announced the availability of a new Tri-Speed Ethernet Media Access Controller (TSMAC) demo, which runs on a LatticeXP Advanced Evaluation Board. This demo uses a web server, which is entirely contained in the LatticeXP device, to show the capability of the TSMAC IP core to function in a real network. Additionally, by embedding a CPU in the LatticeXP device, it shows the ability to have an entire system on a chip. The main features of this demo include:

• Real-world 802.3 Ethernet frames received and transmitted
• Accepts Broadcast messages (DEST_MAC = FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF)
• Accepts packets addressed to its physical MAC address
• Error counters and statistics
• Compliant to IEEE 802.3z standard

To run the demo, simply connect the LatticeXP Advanced Evaluation Board to another host computer (demo PC) on the same network (or via a cross-over cable). The client demo PC will connect to the LatticeXP Advanced Evaluation Board over a standard 100 Base-T network using a web browser. 

The Tri-Speed Ethernet MAC demo, along with detailed documentation, can be downloaded from the Lattice website.

Tri-Speed Ethernet MAC Demo Set-up