Dedicated system configurable cvia internet embedded communication manager module

The communication manager module embedded in a dedicated system configurable via Internet design description and XILINX Spartan 3 FPGA implementation are presented. Keeping Internet connectivity as a priority, minimum subsets of IEEE 802.3 standard rules for Ethernet data interchange and RFC826 and RFC791 recommendations for address resolution protocol (ARP) and Internet protocol (IP) respectively, were selected. The module understands Ethernet frame and makes up the frame for a transmission, it includes a Manchester frame encoder/decoder, a collision detector driver and a frame analyzer stage that decodes IP address and solves ARP requirements. Three stages can be differentiated: transmission/reception and Ethernet encoder/decoder stages implement the selected data link layer functions and IP/ARP encoder/decoder stage for network layer functions. The prototype implementation was done over Digilent S3 SKB development board. The physical layer was implemented with a 10BASE-T connection type. Simulation and electrical test results are shown.