Intel® Arria® 10 Hard Processor System Technical Reference Manual

ID 683711
Date 8/28/2023
Public
Document Table of Contents

18.2. EMAC Block Diagram and System Integration

Figure 86. EMAC System Integration

EMAC Overview

Each EMAC is an internal bus master that sends Ethernet packets to and from the System Interconnect. The EMAC uses a descriptor ring protocol, where the descriptor contains an address to a buffer to fetch or store the packet data.

Each EMAC has an MDIO Management port to send commands to the external PHY. Alternatively, you can use an I2C module in the HPS for the management interface.

Each EMAC has an IEEE 1588 Timestamp interface with 10 ns resolution. The Arm* Cortex*-A9 microprocessor unit (MPU) subsystem can use it to maintain synchronization between the time counters that are internal to the three MACs. The clock reference for the timestamp can be provided by the Clock Manager (emac_ptp_clk) or the FPGA fabric (f2s_emac_ptp_ref_clk). The clock reference is selected by the ptp_clk_sel bit in the emac_global register in the system manager.

Note: All three EMACs must use the same clock reference. In addition, EMAC0 can be configured to provide the timestamp for EMAC1, EMAC2, or both by setting the ptp_ref_sel bit in the emac* register in the System Manager.