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Table Of Contents
Figure 24-2. Data Paths with Packet Buffers Included
MAC Transmitter
TX Packet
Buffer
RX Packet
Buffer
MAC Receiver
RX DMA
TX DMA
RX Packet
Buffer
DPSRAM
TX Packet
Buffer
DPSRAM
Frame Filtering
AHB
AHB
DMA
Status
and
Statistic
Registers
Register
Interface
Control
Interface
Ethernet MAC
RX GMII
TX GMII
MDIO
APB
24.6.3.7 Transmit Packet Buffer
The transmitter packet buffer will continue attempting to fetch frame data from the AHB system memory
until the packet buffer itself is full, at which point it will attempt to maintain its full level.
To accommodate the status and statistics associated with each frame, three words per packet (or two if
the GMAC is configured in 64-bit data path mode) are reserved at the end of the packet data. If the
packet is bad and requires to be dropped, the status and statistics are the only information held on that
packet. Storing the status in the DPRAM is required in order to decouple the DMA interface of the buffer
from the MAC interface, to update the MAC status/statistics and to generate interrupts in the order in
which the packets that they represent were fetched from the AHB memory.
If any errors occur on the AHB while reading the transmit frame, the fetching of packet data from AHB
memory is halted. The MAC transmitter will continue to fetch packet data, thereby emptying the packet
buffer and allowing any good (non-erroneous) frames to be transmitted successfully. Once these have
been fully transmitted, the status/statistics for the erroneous frame will be updated and software will be
informed via an interrupt that an AHB error occurred. This way, the error is reported in the correct packet
order.
The transmit packet buffer will only attempt to read more frame data from the AHB when space is
available in the packet buffer memory. If space is not available it must wait until the a packet fetched by
the MAC completes transmission and is subsequently removed from the packet buffer memory.
SAM D5x/E5x Family Data Sheet
GMAC - Ethernet MAC
© 2019 Microchip Technology Inc.
Datasheet
DS60001507E-page 489