Recommendation for Kinetis MCU with Ethernet.

[Frotz]

Hi,

I'm looking for a Kinetis, or at least ARM-based MCU with everything I need Ethernet communication. I've been looking through the offerings and found so many I can't hardly find the time to evaluate them all. I'd like everything in one chip as much as possible and minimal components beyond that. I don't need wireless, do need high-security and am thinking of using PoE. A demonstration board would be great if NXP already has one. If there's a reference design, that would help too. At a minimum it has to be fully supported with an MCUXpresso IDE SDK—those tools are just wonderful!

Thank you very much,

Andre.

[mario_castaneda]

Hi Andre,

Please look at the LPC546xx MCU Family that supports Ethernet but, it will depend on the application that you want.

Also, you can look at the Kinetis K6x Ethernet Microcontrollers.

The MCUs are supported by MCUxpresso, and you can download the SDK following the next link

https://mcuxpresso.nxp.com/en/dashboard 

Regards,

Mario

[Frotz]

Hi Mark,

I had a look at those and found to be much more than I need. Isn't there a simpler solution? But on the other hand, I'm not sure how simple this can get in my application. Do you know of a schematic showing the simplest implementation?

Maybe there's an LPC solution that's super simple and MCUXpresso compatible?

Thanks,

Andre.

[mjbcswitzerland]

Andre

Chips with Ethernet tend to be a bit complicated because the protocols used require a certain amount of RAM and security is an increasing concern - and so they will always have things like random number generators and security algorithm accelerators on board.

There is nothing MCUXpresso specific since the same can be done with any of the chips using any IDE.

In the past the Freescale Coldfire V2's were popular (such as M52233) since they had Ethernet and PHY in a single package, as did Luminary Micro's (first Cortex M3 parts on the market) Ethernet parts (take over by TI). You may find that TI still offers a single chip solution but Freescale moved away from mixed signal devices (they are more complicated and expensive to manufacture and get quite hot when the Ethernet PHY is running at 100MHz) when the Kinetis family was born.

I started with the Freescale MC9S12NE64 (a 16 bit 68HC12  based processor with 64k Flash and little RAM, but with integrated Ethernet and PHY) - see the story at http://www.utasker.com/history.html and then with Ethernet/IP with application in 32k SRAM - but it was all quite tight and today things have changed, so it may be best to also go with the flow when Ethernet (and the numerous services and protocols that that entails - and expands to) is to be used.

Regards

Mark

[Frotz]

Hi Mark,

That's interesting. I had no idea of all the history associated with these things. I discovered the K66 board and will probably give that a go. Do you know if it's possible to record mono audio at 16bit 44.1kHz? The stuff I've read so far would limit recording to 16bit stereo at 16kHz.

Thanks,

Andre.

[mjbcswitzerland]

Hi Andre

The K66 has I2S for connecting to audio codecs, or it has 2 16 bit ADCs that can operate in 16 bit mode up to 461k samples/second.

Regards

Mark

[mjbcswitzerland]

Hi Andre

The K64 tends to be the most popular - or K66 if you need HS USB too.

The Freedom boards are cheap and work as reference.

Regards

Mark

Complete K64/K65/K66 solutions, training and support:http://www.utasker.com/kinetis.html
Kinetis K64:
- http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/FRDM-K64F.html
- http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/TWR-K64F120M.html
- http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/TEENSY_3.5.html
- http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/Hexiwear-K64F.html

Kinetis K66:
- http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/TWR-K65F180M.html
- http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/FRDM-K66F.html
- http://www.utasker.com/kinetis/TEENSY_3.6.html