Anyone used ENC28J60 ethernet controller with a PIC ?

[meme]

I am wondering if someone succcessfully used the ENC28J60 ethernet controller with a PIC. Can you simply transmit data, or you need to buffer it ? And one more question: the ENC28J60 can/must be programmed tu function properly ? or you simply send or recevie data through SPI and that's all ?
Thank you very much.
P.S. I am from Romania and I can't find this device. What is it's price ?

[asmallri]

I have not programmed it yet but plan to do shortly. It is an NE2000 compatible device so a lot of the exisitng PIC drivers out there should be relativley easy to port. If you search the web you will find several RTL8019A drivers for the PIC. This is also an NE2000 device but communication is via a parallel bus. I suspect this will be a good starting point for developing the ENC28J60.

UPDATE: I have started software development for the ENC28J60. It is radically different from the RTL8019A and my existing driver will be require a complete rewrite.



No. it is not a plug and play solution, drivers need to be developed / ported.

To find the device go to www.microchip.com - you will find the pricing on their site. Form memory it is around US$7 in single off quantities
_________________
Regards, Andrew

http://www.brushelectronics.com/software
Home of Ethernet, SD card and Encrypted Serial Bootloaders for PICs!!

[Mark]

I think you will find most of your answers in the datasheet. Price, around $5. Have I used it successfully, well not yet but shortly. I have the raw PCB's and components. You can't buy the device just yet but you might be able to get samples. One errata with the device is that you must talk SPI @ 10MHz.

[valemike]

I know Freescale has one already.

Microchip is coming out with a micro that has an ethernet controller. So it's like having that ENJ part inside a PIC.

[meme]

valemike, how soon will it be on the market ? do you have a link, or something ?

[valemike]

It is called the PIC18F97J60. It is being pitched by some preliminary sales guys and FAEs as the "EtherPIC"

You can find a very few hits on Google. I don't know when they're coming out with it though.

[Mark]

[treitmey]

What is part# for the freescale part that is out all ready?

[Mark]

MC9S12NE64

[treitmey]

Thanks.
I thought this was an interface. Turns out it is an mcu.

Thanks for the quick reply.

[Mark]

Yeah, that's what Mike was referring to. Problem I see with them is the limited amount of flash and SRAM. If you stuff the MAC inside the micro it takes up space. The space that is used for the flash and SRAM.

[Guest]

[arunb]

Hi,

I think it is not been released yet.

Is NE 2000 a good enough or are there better ones in the market. ??

thanks
arunb

[asmallri]

The ENC28J60 is obviously easier and will offer higher performance for most PICs with SPI interfaces.

Another alternative is the AX88796L it is a 10/100 controller that is NE2000 ish. I have had a look at what is required to port a RealTek implementation to this and it is quite trivial. However, when you look at the maximum throughput you can achieve with a PIC driving an Ethernet controller there is really no value in a 10/100 interface as you cannot get to 10M anyway. For a project I am working on, I worked out I can achieve higher throughput with the ENC28J60 than with a 10/100 controller when using a 40M PIC18F MCU. It might be a different story with a PIC24F or dsPIC33.

The RealTek 8019AS is one of the most common 10M controllers used with PICs.
_________________
Regards, Andrew

http://www.brushelectronics.com/software
Home of Ethernet, SD card and Encrypted Serial Bootloaders for PICs!!