Re: what the best chip for embedded

On Wed, 19 Jun 2002, John Tully wrote:

> I am planning an embedded board and would like to know what is the best of
> the low-cost 10/100 Ethernet chips.

PCI or another bus?

> Important for consideration:
>
> - power usage
>        (this will use POE and it allows about 13 watts plus a little)

You mean 1.3W right?  Even that number is easy to meet.

> - good linux drivers (of course)
> - board realestate
>        (the size of the chip and how much area it requires on the board)

The Realtek chips have been excellent at integration.  You can't make a
$6 board when you have 100+ additional components, even if they
are surface mount.  (Compare with some of the "modern" 3com board.)

> - minimum load on CPU, as the CPU will not be so fast
>        (this is a low cost embedded board)

This rules out everything before the C+ chip.  The 'C' and previous
chips required an extra copy on both transmit and receive.

> - cost

Realtek has always been the low-cost vendor.  You might compare to
NatSemi (natsemi.c), ADMtek (tulip.c) and Alta (sundance.c).  3Com and
Intel are premium products and are usually higher priced.

-- 
Donald Becker				[email protected]
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