Normal Frame Transmission - 9.0 English

Tri-Mode Ethernet MAC LogiCORE IP Product Guide (PG051)

Document ID
PG051
Release Date
2023-11-07
Version
9.0 English

The timing of a normal outbound frame transfer a 1 Gbps can be seen in Figure 1 with the timing at 100 Mbps shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3. When you want to transmit a frame, it places the first column of data onto the tx_axis_mac_tdata port and asserts a 1 onto tx_axis_mac_tvalid .

The TEMAC core accepts the first two bytes of data by asserting tx_axis_mac_tready and then waits until it is allowed to transmit and it then accepts the remainder of the frame. You must be capable of supplying new data on the following cycle when data has been taken, indicated by the assertion of tx_axis_mac_tready . The end of frame is signaled to the MAC core by asserting tx_axis_mac_tlast on the final byte of the frame.

At 1 Gbps, data can be taken every 8 ns; at 100 Mbps, data is taken every 80 ns; at 10 Mbps, data is taken every 800 ns (on an average). In all the cases, tx_axis_mac_tready qualifies when data is taken by the MAC. Figure 2 shows the use of tx_axis_mac_tready to throttle the data when the core has been generated with either an MII or GMII interface. In this mode, the timing at 100 Mbps and 10 Mbps is identical as tx_mac_aclk is sourced by the PHY at the required frequency (25 MHz or 2.5 MHz).

When the core is generated with an RGMII interface or the Internal interface the timing at 10/100 Mbps is very different as shown in Figure 3. In this mode, the tx_mac_aclk remains at 125 MHz at all MAC speeds and the tx_axis_mac_tready is activated once every 10 cycles as shown in Figure 3 or once every 100 cycles at 10 Mbps. This is not true for the first 2 bytes of frame data where the data pipeline fills at full rate.

For maximum flexibility in switching applications, the Ethernet frame parameters (destination address, source address, length/type and optionally FCS) are encoded within the same data stream that the frame payload is transferred upon rather than on separate ports.

Figure 1. Normal Frame Transmission at 1 Gbps Across User Interface
Figure 2. Normal Frame Transmission at 100 Mbps Across User Interface (MII/GMII)
Figure 3. Normal Frame Transmission at 100 Mbps Across User Interface (RGMII)