From owner-freebsd-small Mon Apr 16 11:13:53 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-small@freebsd.org Received: from freeby.mesanet.com (pm3-3-28.dynamic.idiom.com [216.240.35.124]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A19DA37B443 for ; Mon, 16 Apr 2001 11:13:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from pcw@mesanet.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by freeby.mesanet.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id LAA25122; Mon, 16 Apr 2001 11:13:33 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 11:13:32 -0700 (PDT) From: "Peter C. Wallace" To: Chris Dillon Cc: Soren Kristensen , Subject: Re: The ultimate board! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, 16 Apr 2001, Chris Dillon wrote: > On Sat, 14 Apr 2001, Soren Kristensen wrote: > > > Hi Chris, > > > > I'm the hardware designer, so let me comments on your comments :-) > > > > Chris Dillon wrote: > > > > > > [...snip...] > > > > sis0: port 0xe000-0xe0ff mem 0xa0000000-0xa0000ff > > > > > > Ewww... Is this a good enough Ethernet chipset? I've not had good > > > luck with any of SiS's stuff. They seem to make, for lack of a nicer > > > word, crap. > > > > > > > This is not a SIS chip, but a National Semiconductor chip. They > > have made ethernet chips for the last 20 years. I don't trust SIS > > either, but I belive that the DP83815 is natsemi quality. I also > > don't know why it's so close to the SIS chip, but natsemi probably > > bought the MAC core design from SIS.... > > The design of the core itself is what I'm wondering about. Anybody > can manufacture a quality chip these days, but it takes talent to > design one. > > > The only limit on the DP83815 is the requirement for 32 bit > > alligned RX buffers. Otherwise it has all the good features and is > > cheap, $7 in 1K quantity. > > Not bad. But what is the cost of some of the better chips such as the > DEC/Intel 21143 or even an Intel 8255x at that quantity? About 3-4 times the 83815... (when you add the PHY to the 21143 or use the overpriced Intel chip...) Besides I dont think I would do a new design with a 21143, who knows when Intel will drop it... PCW > > > -- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net > FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet. > For IA32 and Alpha architectures. IA64, PPC, and ARM under development. > http://www.freebsd.org > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message > Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message