One of the first choices to make when designing your application is which hardware layer to use. Microchip supports a number of hardware TCP/IP solutions, each with an integrated MAC and/or PHY. The ENC28J60 and ENCX24J600 are stand-alone Ethernet controller chips, developed by Microchip Technology. The MRF24WB0M / MRF24WG0M is a stand-alone 802.11b/g wireless transceiver. The PIC18F97J60 is a PIC18 microcontroller with an integrated Ethernet peripheral. The PIC32MX7XX/6XX series of 32-bit microcontrollers are high performance devices with integrated Ethernet MAC peripheral (MII/RMII interface to external PHY).
For information about demonstration boards that use these devices, see the Demo Kits section.
|
Feature |
ENC28J60 |
ENCX24J600 |
PIC18F97J60 |
MRF24WB0M / MRF24WG0M |
PIC32MX7XX/6XX |
|
Technology |
Wired Ethernet |
Wired Ethernet |
Wired Ethernet |
802.11b/g Wireless |
Wired Ethernet |
|
MAC |
Internal |
Internal |
Internal |
Internal |
Internal |
|
PHY |
Internal (10-Base-T) |
Internal (10/100-Base-T) |
Internal (10-Base-T) |
Internal |
External PHY (MII/RMII Interface) |
|
RAM Buffer (bytes) |
8,192 |
24,576 |
3,808 |
14,170 |
Configurable descriptors in Internal RAM (128k of Internal RAM) |
|
Interface |
SPI |
SPI, 8 or 16 bit multiplexed or demultiplexed parallel interface |
None (built-in Ethernet MAC/PHY) |
SPI |
None (built-in Ethernet MAC) |
|
Pins |
28 |
44, 64 |
64/80/100 |
36 |
64/100/121 |
|
Package |
SOIC, SPDIP, SSOP, QFN (6x6 mm) |
TQFP, QFN |
TQFP |
Surface Mount WiFi I/O module |
TQFP, QFN (9x9 mm), BGA |
|
Cryptographic Engines |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
|
Pre-programmed MAC address |
No(1) |
Yes |
No(1) |
Yes |
Yes |
1: For devices without a pre-programmed MAC address, you may consider using an EEPROM with a built-in MAC address, such as the device family described here.