[SOLVED] microblaze question and clarification

[ghattasak]

hello
i am trying to implement ethernet on xilinx spartan 3e starter i have noticed two options the use of microblaze and the use of a vhdl core
what is the difference?
i do not really understand the advantages microblaze gives to make it and easy implementation
since the mac core can be implemented directly from the core generator and connected to the phy chip

and when implementing microblaze how is it connected to the phy chip

if i have phy chip -> vhdl mac core
then why would i use phy chip -> mac core -> microblaze

thank you

 

[aruipksni]

hello
i am trying to implement ethernet on xilinx spartan 3e starter i have noticed two options the use of microblaze and the use of a vhdl core
what is the difference?
i do not really understand the advantages microblaze gives to make it and easy implementation
since the mac core can be implemented directly from the core generator and connected to the phy chip

and when implementing microblaze how is it connected to the phy chip

if i have phy chip -> vhdl mac core
then why would i use phy chip -> mac core -> microblaze

thank you

--
basically you use microblaze as a controller,
microblaze can then talk to a user via ethernet and execute commands,
get statuses, download or upload files,configure devices and ext ...
you usually utilize a tcp/ip software library that is run on the microblaze.
--
if you don't need controller and you want the ethernet to stream data, like video or audio ,
you use an hardware implementation. hardware will usually use a small set of ip protocols like UDP,
that are implemented on hardware.
--
the mac core i/f is a bit different for microblaze and hardware.
for microblaze it will use standard bus i/f like PLB or OPB bus, that can be directly tied to the microblaze.
for hardware it will use a simple interface like local link.
hardware implementations will (of udp/ip for example) use mostly their own mac implementation, so it wont use a xilinx mac core.
--

 

[ghattasak]

oh ok thank you that was great