Senior Project: Ethernet Board Verification Pt2

Well, on the 22nd i started working with signal integrity verification between the Nexys2 and my Ethernet board. "Why would i do this", you may ask? Well, if the reader has ever done any extensive EE designs, it is known that there are "gremlins" or intermittent failures that occur in digital systems. For instance: when …

Senior Project: Ethernet Board Verification Pt1

Before i start hammering heavily into the HDL and loading onto the FPGA, it is a good idea to confirm the correct operation of some of the core cornerstones of the board.So, i busted out the good old 16500 with the 16531A Oscilloscope Board and started probing.i began with verifying the clock signal was operating …

Quirks in Assembly

i am taking a microprocessors class this semester, and am thus studying Assembly. i have been wading through piles of documentation to find what the language itself is constructed of.Here is what i have determined thus far:1) The instructions of the language are highly determinant on the processor that is being targeted. Meaning the set …

Board Work

It's been a while, that's due to an extremely obnoxious general-ed teacher that decided to post all of the course's assignments in the last two weeks of class. Yes, his supervisor will be hearing from me.Onto other things: i received my board about a week ago and fully assembled it. There was only one glitch …

Amphenol MAGJack

i had narrowed down to a specific MAGJack for my Ethernet communications side of my Senior Project. As you already know, i have laid out the prototype board and ordered parts, of which I already HAVE the MAGJack.i went to the datasheet to find out the voltage and current ratings of the indicator LEDs on …

Coming Soon: USB 3.0 PMOD

i just read an article from EETimes, a great periodical that gives designers insight into future and current technologies.The latest craze is USB3.0 which TI is building a transceiver that has a data rate of 5.0Gbit/s. Yes that is a capital G, for giga. The chip is part of a line of USB3.0 products and …

eeePC Setup

It allows the functionality of the Wifi, Bluetooth, SD Port, Camera and hotkeys to work properly. i am currently running a full-blown Ubuntu 8.10 OS, no sissy watered-down Xandros OS that came pre-installed.i wanted to use this laptop for my HDL and C development, utilizing the Digilent Nexys2 Spartan 3E board and the PIC32 starter …

File Systems and FAT32: MBR

If you've been following my blog, you will have picked up that i am in need of embedding the control of a file system in a microcontroller. The reason is my senior design will entail an embedded FTP server, and hence the reason for a file system.Let's just say they are complicated, and if you …

Memory Scripts and Testing

i've opened up alot of topics i need work in. This being on my quest to integrate TCP/IP and embedded non-volatile storage. i think i'll drop the CF standard for a while, and may switch entirely back to SD as the MicroDrive i am using has extremely complicated timing and operation.i have thus been figuring …

Compact Flash and Ultra ATA

i am working a fairly large design idea, which involves the need for a microcontroller to access a Compact Flash card using the Ultra ATA IDE methodology. i began my research by first analyzing as much data as i could find about the compact flash communication standard. Here's what i've got:The CF interface uses ten …