A Research Of Ethernet MAC Controller Design Based On SOPC

As the Ethernet technology has become the most popular LAN technology, Single chip SOPC embedded devices with MAC controller integrated have more and more applications in industrial control, automotive electronics, and our daily life. Since the IEEE802.3 protocol released, after 30 years of development, the Ethernet protocol has been refined to a new level and it is mainly focuses on the media control management. Agreement on the data frame format of data link layer, which is compatible with different physical layer media, enriched the application range of Ethernet-based MAC controller. This paper will design an Ethernet MAC controller, which is compatible with IEEE802.3 protocol.Then this paper achieved the controller’s SOPC integration, thus providing a basic hardware development platform for embedded network development.This paper analysised Ethernet protocol,and specifically explained the frame structure, CSMA / CD protocol. This article also expanded to achieve a flow control in full duplex mode, which is capable of effectively controlling traffic between the MAC sites. Additionally, this article describes the physical layer’s interface’s timing requirement and designs MII module to configure and manage physical layer chip.Based on the functional properties of the MAC controller, this paper divided the architecture into several modules, each module has its own independent function. Then, this article draws the detailed diagram of the sub-module architecture. Based on VMM verification methodology,a verification platform is built to verified the MAC controller, and the simulation results are consistent with expectations. This paper also designed a SOPC system which integrated the MAC controller.What’s more,SDRAM,UART and SPI-FLASH Controllers are integrated into the SOPC system,which can provide support for FPGA prototype verification.The physical realization of SOPC is completed based on SMIC 65 nm process,including logic synthesis, DFT and timing analysis.Then,the ASIC layout and GDS data are acquired.Finally, the SOPC with MAC controller integrated is mapped into the FPGA and the U-boot is transplanted into the SOPC, the results shows that the functions of the MAC controller is designed successfully.