Re: [Balloon] Balloon 3 Questions

How much room in the FPGA would an Ethernet MAC take up?

My only FPGA experience is with Altera devices....

Should we use a Ethernet Switch to allow external communication? ie: a 3 port switch with 2 ports tied to the fpgas and the other to a phy for external comm?

My use wouldn't need the external ethernet, but other's uses might....

Dan

----- Original Message ----
From: Steve Wiseman <steve@steves-house.org.uk>
To: Dan Brown <truckingeek@yahoo.com>
Cc: "balloon@balloonboard.org" <balloon@balloonboard.org>
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2006 9:29:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Balloon] Balloon 3 Questions


On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 07:01:59 -0700 (PDT), Dan Brown
<truckingeek@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I want to use NFS between boards, so 'ethernet like' would prolly be
> best....
> Also, throughput needs to fairly good....

In that case, Fast Ethernet MACs in the FPGA would do nicely. Wire them
back to back for local stuff, or attach PHYs for off-board traffic. There
are an infinte number of alternatives, of course, but I'm not sure they'd
be better in any meaningful way.

(I really think this list should be default reply to list, chaps)

Steve