Stephan Bärwolf aka. Matrixstorm aka. matrixprog created a circuit board for the SMSC LAN9512 / LAN9514 USB controller ethernet chip. This page describes my advances with his board.
About the LAN951X Chip
The company SMSC was aquired by Microchip and created the LAN9512 and LAN9514 chips. These chips are USB hub controllers and also contain an ethernet controller. They allow to convert USB transfers to ethernet packets. The LAN9512 supports 2 USB ports, the LAN9514 supports 4 USB Ports, the last digit determines the amount of supported USB ports.
The LAN951X is important because it is used in the early Raspberry Pi Models and the BeagleBone boards. When writing an operating system for those boards, it is required to have a working driver for the LAN951X controller.
An open source driver for the LAN951X exists in the linux operating system and also in the embedded Xinu codebase. A custom operating system can model those drivers.
About Matrixstorm’s Board
Matrixstorm’s Board is described on several forum entries and in one github repository.
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/457051
https://www.mikrocontroller.net/topic/413047?goto=new#new
https://www.ebay.de/itm/LAN951X-Adapterboard-Basisplatine-inkl-Komponenten-OHNE-LAN951X/233193113581?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20170511121231%26meid%3D31fbe704dece42cf9703a6459ca5f905%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D15%26mehot%3Dnone%26sd%3D233832330319%26itm%3D233193113581%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057&_trksid=p2380057.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3Adb26b22d-501a-11eb-9290-c2d29be0b34e%7Cparentrq%3Ad7aca2f71760a9c98cd4a5aefff12fc4%7Ciid%3A1
https://github.com/dumpsite/LAN95XX-board
The second link contains images of a carrier board that contains Ethernet Jacks to which the LAN951X board is attached.
Next Steps…
- Prepare the reflow oven.
- Assemble the board.
- Add interfaces (USB plug and ethernet connector)
- Attach the entire board to a windows PC via USB for testing.