ethernet MAC license

[DiChang]

In Nov 2023, we bought several Arty A7-100T boards from Digilent. Just recently my team has found a need to finally use the ethernet MAC feature of the board. I have a few questions. Did our purchase come with the license to use this? If so, how long is the license term (is it 1yr?), where do I find the license info (does it need to installed), and when does the license term start (from the time the boards are received, or if the license needs installation, then when it is installed?)?

[artvvb]

Hey @DiChang

Welcome to the forum. There are a couple of different IP cores distributed by Xilinx/AMD that can (theoretically) be used with the Arty to control the PHY. They may have different licensing requirements from one another, but in any case, would either be free or purchased separately from AMD. In all honesty, the Arty's ethernet functionality has not been tested with recent versions of Vivado and Vitis, so we can't make any particularly good recommendations. I would start by taking a look at this out-of-date guide on the reference site, which goes through the process of setting up a server with the AXI Ethernet Lite IP with the original Arty (functionally identical to the A7) https://digilent.com/reference/learn/programmable-logic/tutorials/arty-getting-started-with-microblaze-servers/start.

A bit more info can be found in the Arty's manual: https://digilent.com/reference/programmable-logic/arty-a7/reference-manual#ethernet_phy.

Hope this helps,

Arthur