F-Tile Triple-Speed Ethernet Intel® FPGA IP User Guide

ID 741328
Date 8/16/2024
Public

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5.1.7.2. Receive FIFO Buffer and Local Device Congestion

Pause frames generated are compliant to the IEEE Standard 802.3 annex 31A & B. The MAC function generates pause frames when the level of the receive FIFO buffer hits a level that can potentially cause an overflow, or at the request of the user application. The user application can trigger the generation of an XOFF pause frame by setting the XOFF_GEN bit in the command_config register to 1 or asserting the xoff_gen signal.

For MAC variations with internal FIFO buffers, the MAC function generates an XOFF pause frame when the level of the FIFO buffer reaches the section-empty threshold (rx_section_empty). If transmission is in progress, the MAC function waits for the transmission to complete before generating the pause frame. The fill level of an external FIFO buffer is obtained via the Avalon® streaming receive FIFO status interface.

When generating a pause frame, the MAC function fills the pause quanta bytes P1 and P2 with the value configured in the pause_quant register. The source address is set to the primary MAC address configured in the mac_0 and mac_1 registers, and the destination address is set to a fixed multicast address, 01-80-C2-00-00-01 (0x010000c28001).

The MAC function automatically generates an XON pause frame when the FIFO buffer section-empty flag is deasserted and the current frame transmission is completed. The user application can trigger the generation of an XON pause frame by clearing the XOFF_GEN bit and signal, and subsequently setting the XON_GEN bit to 1 or asserting the xon_gen signal.

When generating an XON pause frame, the MAC function fills the pause quanta (payload bytes P1 and P2) with 0x0000 (zero quanta). The source address is set to the primary MAC address configured in the mac_0 and mac_1 registers and the destination address is set to a fixed multicast address, 01-80-C2-00-00-01 (0x010000c28001).

In addition to the flow control mechanism, the MAC function prevents an overflow by truncating excess frames. The status bit, rx_err[3], is set to 1 to indicate such errors. The user application should subsequently discard these frames by setting the RX_ERR_DISC bit in the command_config register to 1.