AN 699: Using the Altera Ethernet Design Toolkit

ID 683469
Date 5/13/2016
Public

1.3.3.1.2. IP Status Tab

After configuring the Altera IP cores, switch to the this tab to check for the MAC and PHY status.

Channel Selection

Because the tested design is a multi-channel design, you need to specify the channel to display the MAC and PHY IP status. The available channel numbers are 0 to 11 based on the NUM_CHANNELS parameter set in the top level design file.

PHY Status

This section shows the PHY PCS and PMA status of a particular channel by reading the related channel’s PHY status registers. By default, all the status LED are in yellow color. When you click Update PHY Status, the status LED changes to red or green to indicate the PHY condition.

For example, during the IP configuration stage, if you configure the PHY IP to 10G speed mode, only the 10G mode PHY status register LED changes color while 1G mode status register LED stay in its default yellow color. A text description for each status LED appears when you set the mouse pointer on the status register name.

MAC Status

When you click Update MAC Status, the Ethernet Design toolkit displays the values of the MAC TX and RX statistic counters. The statistic counters are categorized into three sub sections: Total TX & RX Packets Statistics, Total Good Packets Statistics, and Total Error Packets Statistics. From this report, you can check the packets condition on both the TX and RX channels. This information is important during the debugging stage.