Low Latency Ethernet 10G MAC Intel® FPGA IP User Guide

ID 683426
Date 4/09/2024
Public
Document Table of Contents

4.4.5. Inter-Packet Gap Generation and Insertion

The MAC TX maintains an average IPG between TX frames as required by the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard. The average IPG is maintained at 96 bit times (12 byte times) using the deficit idle count (DIC). The MAC TX inserts or deletes idle bytes depending on the value of the DIC; the DIC must be between 9 to 15 bytes. Averaging the IPG ensures that the MAC utilizes the maximum available bandwidth.

For 10M/100M/1G/2.5G operations, however, the MAC TX maintains a minimum IPG of 12 bytes time.