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tetris11today at 5:10 PM2 repliesview on HN

How does wired internet technically work on these chips? Is it just 8 dedicated GPIO pins?


Replies

LeifCarrotsontoday at 5:28 PM

Not "just", it's (presumably) 8 dedicated pins that form an RMII interface. This is not the same 8 pins as you'll find in your 4-pair Ethernet cable, it's a separate protocol which can be connected to an Ethernet PHY transciever like a TI DP83867E [1], which is further connected to "magnetics" [2], a convenient package of 8 integrated transformers and chokes that provide the galvanic isolation feature of an Ethernet connection.

A few SoCs provide integrated PHY transceivers, but usually it's an external chip.

[1]: https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dp83867e.pdf

[2]: https://yageogroup.com/content/datasheet/asset/file/DATASHEE...

BenjiWiebetoday at 5:28 PM

Looks like you need an external PHY. It can talk to the PHY with RGMII which uses 12 pins, which are muxed with GPIO8-19.