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alanp
Joined: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 6
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| Your views on CCS TCP/IP Stack / ENC28J60 |
 Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:37 pm |
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Hi Everybody,
I've been playing with the PCM compiler and PIC16F parts for a little while and I'm thinking it's time for an upgrade.
I'll looking at some potential ethernet / web projects. My thoughts are to upgrade to the PCH compiler and buy the Embedded Ethernet Prototyping Board, using the CCS TCP/IP stack.
I would like your views on the stack and how easy it is to integrate code into it?
Is the Microchip ENC28J60 the best part to go with or would RTL8019 or CS8900 be better parts?
Many thanks
Alan |
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asmallri
Joined: 12 Aug 2004
Posts: 1634
Location: Perth, Australia
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| Re: Your views on CCS TCP/IP Stack / ENC28J60 |
| Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 2:08 am |
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| alanp wrote: | Hi Everybody,
I've been playing with the PCM compiler and PIC16F parts for a little while and I'm thinking it's time for an upgrade.
I'll looking at some potential ethernet / web projects. My thoughts are to upgrade to the PCH compiler and buy the Embedded Ethernet Prototyping Board, using the CCS TCP/IP stack.
I would like your views on the stack and how easy it is to integrate code into it? |
There are challenges associated with the stack, but they are related to issues introduced with the ENC28J60. The chip has a number of advanced features and associated advanced bugs tied to these features. Each rev of the silicon takes two steps forward and one step back. The challenge is keeping on top of the Errata. Microchip's stack and CCS's stack, and for that matter, anyones stack for these devices suffers as a consequence.
If you want to use someone elses stack, then the CCS stack is a good place to start.
The Microchip sucks for a number of reasons, with each rev of the stack (Rev 4 is due any day/week/month now) they break the interface to existing applications. Devices that were once supported are dropped between releases, then added back in later releases. Upper layer application like SNMP supported in one release are dropped from the next release. Anyone trying to build a commerical product that requires on going support would have to have rocks in their head to tie themselves to the MCHP model. If you plan to develop more than a single product and intend to sell it commerically (and would like to retain your intellectual property) then you would have to be crazy to use the Microchip stack - have a read of their software licence agreement for the stack.
I have develpoed my own stack to avoid the Microchip stack challenges I mentioned. The downside is naturally feature velocity is tied to a single source (me), with the CCS approach you may be able to take advantage of work done by others.
| Quote: | | Is the Microchip ENC28J60 the best part to go with or would RTL8019 or CS8900 be better parts? |
The ENC28J60 is very easy to implement in hardware requiring only an SPI interface (4 wires) when used with a 3.3 volt PIC where as the others require you to implement a parallel bus. The PIC18F97J60 family of PICs with embedded ENC28J60 engines offer far higher throughput (due to internal bus integration as opposed to the slower SPI bus). The drivers between the ENC28J60 and the PIC18F97J60 are similar (the chips share common bugs) but sufficiently different to catch out developers. The ENC and PIC18F97J60 are VERY POWER HUNGRY devices consuming around 200mA when the Ethernet module is enabled. By contrast I have a PIC18F452 implementation running at 40MHz with a Realtek 8019AS and the whole thing consumes only 35mA.
The RTL8019AS and the CS8900 are mature parts that have had the advantage of years of silicon debugging in their favour.
I find the integration of the Ethernet module in the PIC18F97J60 family to be so attractive, that my standard high I/O density PIC is the PIC18F97J60. When I do not need Ethernet I just power down the module. For those applications that do not require Ethernet the board space consumed by the unnecessary RJ45 and few discrete components is a very small price to pay for flexibility afforted.
_________________
Regards, Andrew
http://www.brushelectronics.com/software
Home of Ethernet, SD card and Encrypted Serial Bootloaders for PICs!! |
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