Description
The FC401 USB SMI/SPI Adapter represents a hardware module connecting MS-Windows and Linux based host PCs with evaluation boards as well as custom boards featuring Ethernet PHY transceivers or switches with SMI and/or SPI interface.
The FC401 USB SMI/SPI Adapter provides an USB 2.0 interface and a SMI as well as SPI port. The USB interface is used for connectivity to a MS-Windows or Linux host PC. The SMI and SPI ports are used to realize a connection to evaluation and custom boards.
On the host PC the FC401 USB SMI/SPI Adapter is detected as Ethernet device. Flexible software APIs provide seamless access to Ethernet PHY transceiver internal registers via SMI and SPI interface.
Features
Hardware
- High-Speed USB 2.0 device interface
- USB 2.0 Micro-AB connector
- SMI and SPI connectivity via standard 2,54 mm 18-pin header
- NXP LPC4333 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4/M0 microcontroller
- USB powered
- Compact and modular design
- Incl. USB cable and colored fly-wires
Software/Firmware
- MS-Windows 10 and several Linux distributions are supported
- Common C-API and Python 3.x wrapper
- Software API to access Ethernet PHY transceivers and switches internal registers
- Python GUI to read and write register values via SMI and SPI
- Python and C++ sample applications
Applications
The USB interface of the FC401 USB SMI/SPI Adapter allows seamless connection to a broad variety of PCs, notebooks and embedded platforms. The USB control access via Broadway2-API enables the usage of USB hosts running MS-Windows as well as Linux operating systems.
The standard 18-pin header in combination with colored fly-wires enables connectivity to SMI and SPI ports of evaluation and custom boards to access Ethernet PHY transceivers and switches.
The FC401 USB SMI/SPI Adapter can be used for the following use cases:
- Seamless access to evaluation boards and custom boards via SMI and SPI interface
- Access to Ethernet PHY transceivers and switches via SMI and SPI interface
- Configuration and verification of Ethernet PHYs and switches
- Setup and control test-modes, loopback-modes etc. of Ethernet PHY transceivers and switches
- Verification of custom designed PHY and switch boards using FC401 in combination with FC6xx as link-partners
Requirements
- MS-Windows 10 or Linux host platform (e.g. PC, Laptop, Raspberry Pi)
- USB 2.0 host port
