3.4.2 10/100/1000 On-Board RGMII Ethernet Interface

The SAMA7D65-Curiosity Kit board features a complete on-board RGMII Ethernet interface, implemented with the LAN8840 PHY.

The LAN8840 is a low-power, single-port, triple-speed (10BASE-T/100BASE-TX/1000BASE-T) Ethernet physical layer transceiver (PHY) that is optimized for precision process timing. The device enables highly accurate synchronization of motors, valves, actuators and sensors over standard CAT-5, CAT-5e and CAT-6 unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cables. For more information on the LAN8840, refer to www.microchip.com/en-us/product/LAN8840.

The LAN8840 1.1V core power is supplied by an external MIC33153 DC-DC converter. For more information on the MIC33153, refer to www.microchip.com/en-us/product/MIC33153.

The LAN8840 supports industry-standard RGMII (Reduced Gigabit Media Independent Interface) providing chip-to-chip connection to a host device with an integrated Gigabit Ethernet MAC.

An individual unique 48-bit MAC address (Ethernet hardware address) is allocated to this product and is stored in the Microchip SST26VF064BEUI-104I/SM QSPI Flash memory and in the Microchip 24AA025E48 TWI EEPROM. For more information on SST26VF064BEUI, refer to www.microchip.com/en-us/product/SST26VF064BEUI.

Additionally, for monitoring and control purposes, the RJ45 connectors feature LED functionality to indicate activity, link, and speed status.