Adding Ethernet to small Kinetis parts

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Adding Ethernet to small Kinetis parts

41,894 Views
mjbcswitzerland
Specialist V

Hi All

There are some times requirements to add an Ethernet connection to a device that doesn't have an internal Ethernet controller (as the K50, K60 and 70 devices do). In some situations a second physical Ethernet port is also required to be added to a Kinetis with internal Ethernet too.

The following show two cases:

http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/TEENSY_3.1.html#LAN

http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/TEENSY_LC.html#LAN

where a SPI based ENC424J600 has been connected to the mini-Teensy boards with K20 and KL26 parts, showing how Ethernet TCP/IP functionality can be added.

Since the TCP/IP stack is in SW it has not restrictions and is cheaper that typical HW based solutions that are sometimes added in such circumstances.

The same can also be added to parts such as the K64 (eg. to the FRDM-K64F) to turn it into a multi-homed networking device. In this sitation the TCP/IP stack handles IP checksums in software when the ENC424J600 interface is used but still allows the checksum offloading capabilities of the Ethernet controller in the Kinetis device to be utilised when frames arrive from or are sent to this interface.

The ENC424J600 is supported in the uTasker project for all KE, KL, KV or K parts with SPI and adequate Flash/RAM for the TCP/IP rquirements (64k Flash and 16k RAM recommended) as well as for an additional Ethernet interface for K devices with their own internal Ethernet controllers (including multiple-networking, bridging and gateway operation).

Regards

Mark

Kinetis: µTasker Kinetis support

For the complete "out-of-the-box" Kinetis experience and faster time to market

2 Replies

779 Views
china-imm-fae-b
NXP Employee
NXP Employee

Hi Mark,

I suggest using W5500,spi interface and has ethernet protocol stack itself.

I make a reference design using KL27 with W5500 to run ethernet.

please refer to KL27+W5500串口转以太网 -  FSL Kinetis -  手机版 - Powered by Discuz!.

thanks.

779 Views
mjbcswitzerland
Specialist V

Hi

Yes, there are many ways to add Ethernet but also the W5500 is not the only one and also not always the optimal solution:

- when using external parts with integrated stack one is paying software royalties for the software in the silicon price, which may become significant in large quantities.

- In dual-homed solutions it doesn't make sense to have an external stack since it then requires one stack for the SPI interface and one for the internal interface with unnecessary complications to perform gateway and bridging operations.

- If the product needs extensions that are not available in the hard stack then there can be serious problems - in the case of a software stack these parts can generally be extended and the products upgraded. The W5500, for example, doesn't include IPv6, which is in itself a big restriction.

- the power consumed by a device like the W5500 is higher than that consumed by a general SPI based Ethernet controller

Regards

Mark

Kinetis: µTasker Kinetis support

For the complete "out-of-the-box" Kinetis experience and faster time to market

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