DocID018909 Rev 11
RM0090
Ethernet (ETH): media access control (MAC) with DMA controller
1232
33.5.2 MAC
frame
transmission
The DMA controls all transactions for the transmit path. Ethernet frames read from the
system memory are pushed into the FIFO by the DMA. The frames are then popped out and
transferred to the MAC core. When the end-of-frame is transferred, the status of the
transmission is taken from the MAC core and transferred back to the DMA. The Transmit
FIFO has a depth of 2 Kbyte. FIFO-fill level is indicated to the DMA so that it can initiate a
data fetch in required bursts from the system memory, using the AHB interface. The data
from the AHB Master interface is pushed into the FIFO.
When the SOF is detected, the MAC accepts the data and begins transmitting to the MII.
The time required to transmit the frame data to the MII after the application initiates
transmission is variable, depending on delay factors like IFG delay, time to transmit
preamble/SFD, and any back-off delays for Half-duplex mode. After the EOF is transferred
to the MAC core, the core completes normal transmission and then gives the status of
transmission back to the DMA. If a normal collision (in Half-duplex mode) occurs during
transmission, the MAC core makes the transmit status valid, then accepts and drops all
further data until the next SOF is received. The same frame should be retransmitted from
SOF on observing a Retry request (in the Status) from the MAC. The MAC issues an
underflow status if the data are not provided continuously during the transmission. During
the normal transfer of a frame, if the MAC receives an SOF without getting an EOF for the
previous frame, then the SOF is ignored and the new frame is considered as the
continuation of the previous frame.
There are two modes of operation for popping data towards the MAC core:
•
In Threshold mode, as soon as the number of bytes in the FIFO crosses the configured
threshold level (or when the end-of-frame is written before the threshold is crossed),
the data is ready to be popped out and forwarded to the MAC core. The threshold level
is configured using the TTC bits of ETH_DMABMR.
•
In Store-and-forward mode, only after a complete frame is stored in the FIFO, the frame
is popped towards the MAC core. If the Tx FIFO size is smaller than the Ethernet frame
to be transmitted, then the frame is popped towards the MAC core when the Tx FIFO
becomes almost full.
The application can flush the Transmit FIFO of all contents by setting the FTF
(ETH_DMAOMR register [20]) bit. This bit is self-clearing and initializes the FIFO pointers to
the default state. If the FTF bit is set during a frame transfer to the MAC core, then transfer
is stopped as the FIFO is considered to be empty. Hence an underflow event occurs at the
MAC transmitter and the corresponding Status word is forwarded to the DMA.
Automatic CRC and pad generation
When the number of bytes received from the application falls below 60 (DA+SA+LT+Data),
zeros are appended to the transmitting frame to make the data length exactly 46 bytes to
meet the minimum data field requirement of IEEE 802.3. The MAC can be programmed not
to append any padding. The cyclic redundancy check (CRC) for the frame check sequence
(FCS) field is calculated and appended to the data being transmitted. When the MAC is
programmed to not append the CRC value to the end of Ethernet frames, the computed
CRC is not transmitted. An exception to this rule is that when the MAC is programmed to
append pads for frames (DA+SA+LT+Data) less than 60 bytes, CRC will be appended at the
end of the padded frames.
