FPGA for ETHERNET and SSF transceivers ?

[abdo.medo1000]

Hi dears I wish you a good day ,
I am working on my bachelor graduation prohect which is ( an overcurrent protection relay design ) and I using an MPU to have all the functions and required controlling inside it. And I want to add a communication interface ports with my device to share real time arc Fault data with other devices using local networks and I want to add at least 2 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet (RGMII) and 2 Optical Transceivers SFF 1000BASE.
I want to add this ETHERNET and SFF module to my project and after a lot of research I noticed that the MPUs only can connect with only one ethernet for and I also found the ETHERNET switches, but I analyzed the marketing, and the experts says that ethernet switches are not good in real time data transferring and the best way to implement the multiple ethernet and SFF transceivers with the project is using the FPGA. And I checked some devices that using for communication, and I noticed that they used the FPGA for that I started to learn VHDL to program an FPGA and add it to my project. but I get confused and I feel myself going in wrong path. Also, I am supposed should use some protocols like MODBUS…. etc.
Forgive me for writing so long and I wish you help and guide me to reach my goal of designing multiple ethernet and SSF transceivers using FPGA

Briefly my questions for you are
According to my goals as I mentioned before what should I do to design my own FPGA circuit and implement the ETHERNET and SFF transceiver modules with it?
Which FPGA should I buy?
Which FPGA development board should I use?
Which software should I use to design the FPGA?
I need any reference designs, books, courses or a good path to finish this part of my project as soon as possible.

If you read until here thank you very much and I am looking forward for your advice.
Sincerely,

 

[FvM]

I doubt that the real time capability will be limited by the ethernet switch in the first place. Ethernet as such isn't designed for real time applications, if you manage to process ethernet packets pretty fast in a FPGA, the peers probably don't.

What's the source or sink and real time data in your design? Is it the processor or is data processing compeletely inside the FPGA? What are your throughput and latency requirements? For hard real time capability you may go for an interface like EtherCAT.

 

[abdo.medo1000]

I doubt that the real time capability will be limited by the ethernet switch in the first place. Ethernet as such isn't designed for real time applications, if you manage to process ethernet packets pretty fast in a FPGA, the peers probably don't.

What's the source or sink and real time data in your design? Is it the processor or is data processing compeletely inside the FPGA? What are your throughput and latency requirements? For hard real time capability you may go for an interface like EtherCAT.

Thank you for your replying, my project a current based protection device and the data of it is not that much to use EtherCAT, I noticed that I wrote in my question 1000/Mbits which is written by mistake. I only want to support only 3 protocols for now and for that I want to use Ethernet based communication systems via the RJ-45 connector (100Base-TX) and the fibre optic LC connector (100Base-FX). According to that what is your advice for me to start? I actually started to learn VHDL but what else should I do

--- Updated Feb 20, 2022 ---

Hi dears I wish you a good day ,
I am working on my bachelor graduation prohect which is ( an overcurrent protection relay design ) and I using an MPU to have all the functions and required controlling inside it. And I want to add a communication interface ports with my device to share real time arc Fault data with other devices using local networks and I want to add at least 2 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet (RGMII) and 2 Optical Transceivers SFF 1000BASE.
I want to add this ETHERNET and SFF module to my project and after a lot of research I noticed that the MPUs only can connect with only one ethernet for and I also found the ETHERNET switches, but I analyzed the marketing, and the experts says that ethernet switches are not good in real time data transferring and the best way to implement the multiple ethernet and SFF transceivers with the project is using the FPGA. And I checked some devices that using for communication, and I noticed that they used the FPGA for that I started to learn VHDL to program an FPGA and add it to my project. but I get confused and I feel myself going in wrong path. Also, I am supposed should use some protocols like MODBUS…. etc.
Forgive me for writing so long and I wish you help and guide me to reach my goal of designing multiple ethernet and SSF transceivers using FPGA

Briefly my questions for you are
According to my goals as I mentioned before what should I do to design my own FPGA circuit and implement the ETHERNET and SFF transceiver modules with it?
Which FPGA should I buy?
Which FPGA development board should I use?
Which software should I use to design the FPGA?
I need any reference designs, books, courses or a good path to finish this part of my project as soon as possible.

If you read until here thank you very much and I am looking forward for your advice.
Sincerely,

edit : According to my advisor my device should connect to Ethernet based communication systems via the RJ-45 connector (100Base-TX) and the fibre optic LC connector (100Base-FX). The protocols that I will implement will be only DNP3 , GOOSE and MODBUS.

 

[dpaul]

I think we need a more concrete description regarding the architecture and more importantly the use case.

I noticed that I wrote in my question 1000/Mbits which is written by mistake. I only want to support only 3 protocols for now and for that I want to use Ethernet based communication systems via the RJ-45 connector (100Base-TX) and the fibre optic LC connector (100Base-FX). According to that what is your advice for me to start? I actually started to learn VHDL but what else should I do

1. You can use the 3 protocols mentioned with any 3 speeds - 10/100/1000100Base*, no problem with that. But remember that those 3 protocols have to be implemented at some high level and not at the link-layer.

2. When someone is using fiber-optic connectors, it makes more practical sense to use speeds of 1000/10000/more.

3. You can start with a simple application where Ethernet frames using a RJ-45 connector (100Base-TX) can be exchanged between your FPGA development board and the PC.