Gigabit PHY (AR8035 replacement)?

Sub forums for various specialist XMOS applications. e.g. USB audio, motor control and robotics.
rkn
Member
Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:23 pm

Gigabit PHY (AR8035 replacement)?

Post by rkn »

Hello,

I am currently starting my third hardware project with xmos. It will mostly distill building blocks from XK-AUDIO-216-MC reference design.
It is a little bit hard to source the Gigabit PHY AR8035 here in small quantities (<2000pcs.) at least for some prototypes or I even did not find the right supplier in Europe, yet...
Thus, can you recommend another PHY that is compatible with Xcore and does not need or only some minor changes of the driver?
Requirements for the project are Gigabit Ethernet and AVB/TSN.

Raphael


User avatar
mon2
XCore Legend
Posts: 1913
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:43 am
Contact:

Post by mon2 »

https://www.arrow.com/en/products/ar8035-al1b/qualcomm

Be sure the above is a valid fit and version.

Wish to add to the above:

1) Consider Arrow as your primary source for this part. That is what we have done in the past. The datasheets for these parts are available through Google.

2) An alternate source is the following from Shenzhen, CN:

Vicky
------------------
Shenzhen Mingshunxin Electronics Co.,Ltd
Add:A-1303-05 Jiahe-Huaqiang Building Zhonghang Rd(518031) Futian Shenzhen China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tel:0755-82780677 whatsapp:+86 15711998285
FAX: 86-755-82553303
Skype: 2355429360 @qq.com
E-mail: 2355429360@qq.com
Web:http://www.msxic.cn/en
Alibaba: http://ydic.en.alibaba.com

The above supplier in Shenzhen was able to source a rare and EOL part from Genesys Logic to repair a lab logic analyzer instrument. They are very responsive and shipped the requested parts within a few days via DHL to our location. Now our expensive tool is working fine thanks to their help.

Many similar hits on Aliexpress but as noted, consider as a Plan B:

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?ca ... ext=AR8035
User avatar
data
Active Member
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:02 pm

Post by data »

Sorry I don't have any positive recommendations, but I can give you some negative ones.

Based on our experience, I recommend staying well away from the AR8035. If I remember rightly, it is now EOL. Qualcomm don't usually have time to deal with customers buying less than 1M/year anyway.

Arrow are solid, but definitely stay away from the grey market or Ali Express, unless you're prepared to test every part yourself and/or you don't care about failures.

Don't be tempted by the KSZ9021 or its siblings. This part was designed many years ago at a company which has been bought and sold numerous times -- so there's no support and the part's future is uncertain. Also, it has rather nasty power supply problems.

In our project, we wound up switching to 100Mbit, but before that we were looking at Realtek -- cheap, cheerful, should be fine for consumer goods.

AFAIK essentially anything with an RGMII interface should work (in principle) for gigabit with the XMOS. Changes usually will be in details like link management.
User avatar
akp
XCore Expert
Posts: 578
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:47 pm

Post by akp »

We are going with AR8035 from Arrow for some prototypes. Good advice above, in fact I also use it in 100MBit mode for now. In future a more stable supply of Gigabit PHY would be superior. Digikey carries a lot of TI parts, I'd probably go with TI next time. Microchip also has a lot of parts but as mentioned above these came from other companies through acquisitions.
azs
Member++
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2017 11:11 am

Post by azs »

Hi there !

Same question for me. Designing an AVB board, I want to remove Atheros/Qualcomm chip for something more "common"....

Want to go on KSZ9031RNA.

Reading Atheros datasheet, it seems this chip has nothing "special" for AVB, and nothing really different from KSZ9031.
So I assume KSZ could be a good drop-in replacement part (with SMI driver modified, of course !)

Anyone have an opinion on this choice ?

Thanks !
User avatar
mon2
XCore Legend
Posts: 1913
Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2010 11:43 am
Contact:

Post by mon2 »

Why not consider the in stock version of the Atheros PHY? Can't see this part going EOL anytime soon but do ask Arrow to investigate. Suspecting there are high volume OEMs using this component otherwise Arrow would have zero inventory of this device.

https://www.arrow.com/en/products/ar8035-al1a/qualcomm

This is the "A" suffix so is commercial temp vs. "B" version which is industrial. This solution is in stock and supported by the reference design from XMOS without IP changes. Best to talk to your local Arrow rep as we know we paid under $1 USD for these parts ("A" version) in the past.

https://www.redeszone.net/app/uploads/2 ... AR8035.pdf
plex
Member++
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2016 6:13 pm

Post by plex »

I have just designed the TI DP83867IR/CR in a product. It seems to work without a problem. The only change required was to use a PHY Address of 0x0 instead of 0x4.
azs
Member++
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon Oct 09, 2017 11:11 am

Post by azs »

Just a feedback on KSZ9031RNA, to inform that it seems to work very well !
We have created our own SMI lib in order to adapt the register mapping, but that's it ! AVB transmission works well. If it can help somebody ;)
swissembedded
Junior Member
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Dec 31, 2019 9:54 am

Post by swissembedded »

Is there any official KSZ9031RNX library available from xmos yet, as there is an reference design for the chip?
User avatar
akp
XCore Expert
Posts: 578
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:47 pm

Post by akp »

All you have to do is write your own little driver to write the SMI registers, it's no big deal. The RGMII will work fine as azs said. Takes a couple hours to write the code and test on your boards. The ar8035 driver from xmos has errors in the register settings anyway (the register settings xmos made don't really do what they think they do, if I remember correctly).
Post Reply