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Bodged up 10/100 Ethernet & USB on FPGA.

Started by Symon September 21, 2004
All,
I'm building a prototype board and I've the opportunity to try out a few
things. One idea I've toyed with is being able to communicate with an FPGA
using Ethernet. I've looked at Jean P. Nicolle's site, www.fpga4fun.com ,
and he's done some interesting stuff.
Anyway, I've not got much time for research, my plan is to layout an RJ45
with integrated magnetics, bias the Virtex2P FPGA side to about 1.2V and try
to communicate using the LVDSEXT I/Os. I'll put a balanced termination
resistor network between the RJ45 and the FPGA.
I notice you can get RJ45's with USB connectivity. JW0-0009 from
www.pulseeng.com so I'll wire the USB up to the FPGA as well, in the hope
that I might be able to drive a USB pen drive at some point. I'll connect 5V
to the USB power pins, and two 3.3V Vcco FPGA pins to the USB signal pins
with the appropriate 15k pull down resistors
Anyway, as I said, time is short, anybody done this before and willing to
share any ideas and gotchas?
Remember, I'm not trying to meet exact specs, just get something working so
I can concentrate on the logic design.
TIA, Syms.