AM437x Ethernet Port

qinghai liao

Hi.

I am a little confused about the Ethernet ports of AM437x. I use the AM437x IDK EVM.

As the RTM shows, AM437x should support 4 Ethernet ports--- two industrial Ethernet ports connected to PRU-ICSS1 and two gigabit Ethernet ports of the CPSW (port0 connected to A9 core). So if I want and I design the board myself and the pins don't conflict, I use these 4 ports at the same time?

And RTM section 7 table 7-11, AM437x has only two MAC addresses. Thus if I use the two industrial Ethernet ports in dual mac mode which will take two mac addresses. Then I can't use the gigabit Ethernet of CPSW because there is no mac address available. Is this understanding right ?

Thanks.

Sincerely yours,

Qinghai

over 11 years ago

0 David Zaucha over 11 years ago

TI__Expert 7570 points

Qinghai

Because of pin limitations the AM437x can support up to three Ethernet interfaces. This can be two EtherCAT PRU based interfaces and one CPSW or it can be 2 CPSW and one PRU.

The AM437x IDK EVM I2C ID memory supports three mac addresses. A description of this is contain in the IDK User Guide http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/AM437x_IDK_EVM_HW_User_Guide

A overview of the AM437x Ethernet subsystem is contained in section 15 of the AM437 TRM. The PRU specific Ethernet features are described in section 30.

David Zaucha

0 qinghai liao over 11 years ago in reply to David Zaucha

Prodigy 250 points

Thank you, David.

I have noticed that there are 3 MAC addresses in the EEPROM on the board( #CAT24C256WI-G ). But there are registers for MAC 630h CTRL_MAC_ID0_LO,634h CTRL_MAC_ID0_HI,638h CTRL_MAC_ID1_LO, 63Ch CTRL_MAC_ID1_HI. Thus, these MAC addresses are the same with the others in the EEPROM, right?
Thanks.

Best Regards,
Qinghai

0 qinghai liao over 11 years ago in reply to David Zaucha

Prodigy 250 points

Hi,David.

I read the starterware of the IDK2.1 and it reads MAC address from registers of MPU rather IIC connected EEPROM on the board.
so which is right?

Best Regards,
Qinghai

0 David Zaucha over 11 years ago in reply to qinghai liao

TI__Expert 7570 points

Qinghai

The MAC addresses available in the SOC E-fuse have been purchased by TI and are available for customer use during development. The 2 E-fuse entries represent the beginning and ending addresses of 3 MAC IDs.

At some point you may choose to use you own addresses to control the traffic and use additional addresses to meet specific protocol and network configuration requirements.

David

0 qinghai liao over 11 years ago in reply to David Zaucha

Prodigy 250 points

David

I understood and Thank you very much.

Best Regards,
Qinghai

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AM437x Ethernet Port