Hello all,
I am designing a circuit board with Ethernet and have a real basic question. I do not have any experience with Ethernet, so I hope my question does not seem too silly.
I have 4 processors on a board that need to talk to each other and to the outside world thru fast Ethernet. I have targeted a possible Ethernet controller, the SMSC LAN91C111 (mac and phy).
One implementation would be to have 4 LAN91C111's (one to each processor), 4 sets of magnetics, connected to an on board router, then to another set of magnetics, then to the RJ-45 connector, etc...
This seems like a lot of unneccessary hardware. It would seem like there would be an integrated solution with 4 processors talking to a single controller and that controller connected to a single set of magnetics to the RS-45 connector.
Any ideas would be appreciated, Jim