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Embedded Ethernet or USB?

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BrownOut

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We have some product deployed that isn't working up to spec. I have one of the circuit boards in my lab, but I don't have the backplane system to plug it into for testing, nor do I have the bus host board that it communicates with. As I see it, however, all I have to do is supply logic for the 40 address/data and about 10 control and interrupt lines, and I can get some very basic bus traffic in and out of it. I plan on using my Spartan E 1600 dev board to supply the signals. I can use the serial port for terminal communication and control, but as the bus runs at 160Mbs, the serial port can't keep up. Well, it doesn't actually need to, but it would be cool if it could. And this brings me to my question.

Either Ethernet or USB could easily keep up the data rate, as long as they are full/fast implementations. The question then becomes, which would be the less painful to implement? I know there are integrated products for both, but I'm not up to speed on all of them. BTW, the board has Ethernet PHY, but that's inconsequential, because Xilinx only allows use of its EDK if I pony up 500 bucks, and I'd have to give up alot of Jack Daniels to come up with that kind of bread. It would have been nice though, because the I/O's for the Ethernet are already committed. Bummer.

Well, I'm open to anything that I can get up and running in about a week. Any longer than that, and I'll just stick with the serial port solution, and cache the data to be transmitted.
 
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Less Jack Daniels = more money, more health, and more data rate. What's to lose?
 
Ramp up the production line and get the boards you need to properly emulate the system. Aside from that, even cached I do not see how the serial port can resemble a 160 MBIT bus. I would say USB 3.0
 
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Production has ended. It was a short production run, only 20 units, and there is nothing else to be made. What little test gear we had is at the contractor's side in Cal. The test is going to require some home brew.
 
I'm thinking the Cypress development kit with the Keil software or the Wiznet would be the easiest. One of the teams I used to work with developed a prototype system with the Cypress sysem, and I don't remember too many chewed off fingernails. I was only hoping someone had some experience to relate and help my chose between USB and ehternet. At this point, I'm leaning hard towards USB.
 
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