Design&Implementation Of Gigabit Ethernet Communication System Based On FPGA

With the popularity of Ethernet applications, improvement of computerprocessing technology and intelligent development of electronic devices, all kinds ofhome appliances, safety equipment and personal consumable will connect together viaEthernet in the future life. Thus, the applications of Embedded System ofEthernet-based communication are becoming increasingly important. As theprogrammable capacity in a single FPGA chip increasing, it is a research trend thatEmbedded System connected into network in the way of combining FPGA, embeddedprocessor and TCP/IP protocol stack.Based on the embedded processing architecture of virtex-5FX, the theory ofGigabit Ethernet’s MAC&PHY layer and GMII interface is firstly conducted in thispaper. Then, based on Marvell PHY device and virtex-5FPGA chip, a solution fordeveloping Gigabit Ethernet communication system is briefly presented. With the useof Xilinx EDK12.4, two SOPC system, which is respectively based on MicroBlazesoft-processor and PowerPC hard-processor in a virtex-5FPGA, are realized with thesoftware and hardware combined. In this paper, the way of constructing hardwaresystem, the design for hardware drivers and application software program which isbased on LwIP protocol stack in both systems are discussed in detail. Finally, both twosystems are tested according to typical Ethernet communication flow, and test resultsshow the embedded communication system realized in this paper can support datatransfer at a maximal speed of352Mbps, which proves the whole system meet thetransmission requirement of gigabit Ethernet, can make the best of the existentphysical network, and achieve expecting performance.