AM2434: MAC address on AM2434 ALX chip for Ethernet IP

Part Number: AM2434

Tool/software:

Hello,
we are currently working with the AM2434 board, which has a single assigned MAC address from TI stored internally on the chip. We intend to utilize the ethernetip_adapter_generic_device_rgmii_demo_am243x-lp_r5fss0-0_freertos_ti-arm-clang project for an Ethernet/IP daisy chain configuration.

I have a couple of questions regarding the MAC address configuration:
Is it necessary to assign a separate MAC address for each port on the AM2434 when implementing the Ethernet/IP daisy chain?
The adapter demo project appears to be using the MAC address stored in EEPROM. How can I modify the project to utilize the MAC address directly from the chip instead? Where is on chip MAC address located?

Any guidance on these points would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your assistance!
BR,
Matej Liska.

  • Hi Matej,

    Is it necessary to assign a separate MAC address for each port on the AM2434 when implementing the Ethernet/IP daisy chain?

    No, Port-specific MAC addresses are not a requirement for EthernetIP. You can have one MAC address assigned to the device which will be used as source address of all the frames sent by the device and the destination address in the frames meant for the device.

    The adapter demo project appears to be using the MAC address stored in EEPROM. How can I modify the project to utilize the MAC address directly from the chip instead? Where is on chip MAC address located?

    Regarding this query, I'll check this internally with our EIP Stack expert and come back with an update.

    Thank you
    Archit Dev

  • Hi Matej,

    the MAC address is actually not read from EEPROM but rather through register access from the SoC itself, you can see the implementation in the function  EI_APP_TASK_getMacAddr in appTask.c.

    Best regards,
    Pourya

  • Hi Archit,

    thank you for your valuable insights on using a single MAC address with the AM2434 processor; your advice has been helpful in solving my task!

    BR, Matej.

  • Hi Pourya,
    Thank you for your helpful response regarding the EI_APP_TASK_getMacAddr function!
    Just to clarify, am I correct that the two memory addresses used to read the MAC address from the SoC are:
    const uint32_t mac_address_upper_16_bits = *IDK_CTRLMMR0_MAC_ID1;
    const uint32_t mac_address_lower_32_bits = *IDK_CTRLMMR0_MAC_ID0;?

    I appreciate your guidance!
    BR, Matej.

  • Hi Matej,

    yes, these are the registers to read MAC address from. ( in AM64x/AM243x Technical Reference Manual it is called CTRLMMR_MAC_ID0 and CTRLMMR_MAC_ID1).

    Best regards,
    Pourya

  • Hi Pourya,
    i also found possibility of use function:
    int32_t EnetSoc_getEFusedMacAddrs(uint8_t macAddr[][ENET_MAC_ADDR_LEN],uint32_t *num);

    is this like same procedure to get SoC MAC address?

    BR, Matej.

  • Hi Matej,

    EtherNet/IP example is not using ENET driver. This function you mentioned is about reading from Efuse location the MAC addresses, it is not the same as reading the SoC MAC address. By the way, I think this function returns 0 number of Efused MAC addresses, see the implementation in enet_soc.c.

    Best regards,
    Pourya

  • Hi Pourya,
    thank you for clarify this and for your valuable insights on using EI_APP_TASK_getMacAddr function to get SoC MAC address AM2434 processor. Based on previous discussion on this forum SoC MAC will be programmed by TI in factory and then we don't need to use external EEPROM MAC addresses for EIP functionality.
    Your advice has been helpful in solving my task!

    BR, Matej.

  • Hi Matej,

    Good to know that we are making progress in addressing your queries. In order to confirm, do you have any other issues here where we can help? 

    Also, based on our discussion in the current thread do you have any other queries in following thread: AM2434: MAC address on AM2434 chip from TI - Arm-based microcontrollers forum - Arm-based microcontrollers - TI E2E support forums. I see that you have another thread for a similar topic.

    Regards
    Archit Dev