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From: Big Boy on 31 Mar 2010 04:54 Hello Group We are facing a project, where we need to incorporate a router and a 4 port ethernetswitch into a design. The switch part, we have covered, but the routerpart seems to post some sort of challenge. The requirements are: Always the same IP adress on the WAN side On the LAN side we need either DHCP or static IP's and NAT Portforwarding Does anyone here know of some small embedded module, for this use, or could point us in the direction of a chip-set or referencedesign? We thought about simply buying an industrial router, but spaceconstraints and a "minimum-cables" policy from the customer forces us to integrate this function on our PCB. It is part of a Computer system based on a ETX Module, but as far as I see, this function is completely separate from the computer it self, and could be contained on a PCB of its own, inside the box. Any thoughts or pointers would be gladly appreciated. Best regards
From: Didi on 31 Mar 2010 08:28 On Mar 31, 11:54 am, "Big Boy" <not.va...(a)nowhere.dk> wrote: > Hello Group > > We are facing a project, where we need to incorporate a router and a 4 port > ethernetswitch into a design. > The switch part, we have covered, but the routerpart seems to post some sort > of challenge. > > The requirements are: > > Always the same IP adress on the WAN side > On the LAN side we need either DHCP or static IP's and NAT > Portforwarding > > Does anyone here know of some small embedded module, for this use, or could > point us in the direction of a chip-set or referencedesign? We thought about > simply buying an industrial router, but spaceconstraints and a > "minimum-cables" policy from the customer forces us to integrate this > function on our PCB. > > It is part of a Computer system based on a ETX Module, but as far as I see, > this function is completely separate from the computer it self, and could be > contained on a PCB of its own, inside the box. > > Any thoughts or pointers would be gladly appreciated. > > Best regards I had been doing such a design some time ago but it never went past ordering the PCBs (partner gave the project up and I saw no marketing chances on my own). I still have some of them here - naked. The CPU part is MPC5200B, I have other systems based on it running with a 10/100 PHY (single port); on the board that got never brought to life the switch chip connects to the MPC5200 PHY and MII, it is a 5 port 10/100 part, but I have never talked to it (still have a few samples of it here). You can have a look at it at http://tgi-sci.com/dsv/ipn/ Feel free to contact me directly if there is some real interest. Dimiter ------------------------------------------------------ Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments http://www.tgi-sci.com ------------------------------------------------------ http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/sets/72157600228621276/
From: Doug McIntyre on 31 Mar 2010 11:08 "Big Boy" <not.valid(a)nowhere.dk> writes: >We are facing a project, where we need to incorporate a router and a 4 port >ethernetswitch into a design. The bigger question is how much throughput you need? Router design is either mostly software (bound by CPU throughput limits then), or heavyily designed hardware (expensive & hard). There are a few chipsets specificly designed for routers (ie. some of the Freescale PPC, or the Broadcom communication processor lines), as well as some lines devoted to things such as being ADSL routers by TI. Although I'd suspect that for the most bang for the buck, you'd end up with something like a small PC running embedded linux/freebsd doing your router functions and be bound by the CPU limits of a software router.
From: d_s_klein on 31 Mar 2010 12:48 On Mar 31, 1:54 am, "Big Boy" <not.va...(a)nowhere.dk> wrote: > Hello Group > > We are facing a project, where we need to incorporate a router and a 4 port > ethernetswitch into a design. > The switch part, we have covered, but the routerpart seems to post some sort > of challenge. > > The requirements are: > > Always the same IP adress on the WAN side > On the LAN side we need either DHCP or static IP's and NAT > Portforwarding > > Does anyone here know of some small embedded module, for this use, or could > point us in the direction of a chip-set or reference design? We thought about > simply buying an industrial router, but space constraints and a > "minimum-cables" policy from the customer forces us to integrate this > function on our PCB. > > It is part of a Computer system based on a ETX Module, but as far as I see, > this function is completely separate from the computer it self, and could be > contained on a PCB of its own, inside the box. > > Any thoughts or pointers would be gladly appreciated. > > Best regards I bought a device that does what you want for NT$ 400 in Taiwan a while back. That was less than US$ 14 for quantity one, in a retail store, in a box with a CD and a power supply. I took it apart, found the chip-set maker (it was an embedded X86 with two MII ports; one MII went to a 1-port PHY, the other MII went to a 4- port switch) I realized that I could not duplicate it for less that $50 - it was cheaper to walk into the store and buy a case of them. How much router can _you_ build for $14? RK
From: linnix on 31 Mar 2010 13:00
On Mar 31, 12:54 am, "Big Boy" <not.va...(a)nowhere.dk> wrote: > Hello Group > > We are facing a project, where we need to incorporate a router and a 4 port > ethernetswitch into a design. > The switch part, we have covered, but the routerpart seems to post some sort > of challenge. > > The requirements are: > > Always the same IP adress on the WAN side > On the LAN side we need either DHCP or static IP's and NAT > Portforwarding This is doable with dual ethernet ports, using an early Linux kernel. However, if you hardware is SRAM bounded, you would need to port the kernel in FLASH. I suggest an ARM with 256K FLASH and 8K SRAM. > > Does anyone here know of some small embedded module, for this use, or could > point us in the direction of a chip-set or referencedesign? We thought about > simply buying an industrial router, but spaceconstraints and a > "minimum-cables" policy from the customer forces us to integrate this > function on our PCB. > > It is part of a Computer system based on a ETX Module, but as far as I see, > this function is completely separate from the computer it self, and could be > contained on a PCB of its own, inside the box. > > Any thoughts or pointers would be gladly appreciated. > > Best regards |