FPGA for ETHERNET and SSF transceivers ?

[Zaim]

Hi dears I wish you a good day ,

I am working on my bachelor graduation prohect which is ( an overcurrent protection relay design ) and I using an STM32MP1 to have all the functions and required controlling inside it. And I want to add a communication interface ports with my device to share real time arc Fault data with other devices using local networks and I want to add at least 2 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet (RGMII) and 2 Optical Transceivers SFF 1000BASE. 

I want to add this ETHERNET and SFF module to my project and after a lot of research I noticed that the MPUs only can connect with only one ethernet for and I also found the ETHERNET switches, but I analyzed the marketing, and the experts says that ethernet switches are not good in real time data transferring and the best way to implement the multiple ethernet and SFF transceivers with the project is using the FPGA. And I checked some devices that using for communication, and I noticed that they used the FPGA for that I started to learn VHDL to program an FPGA and add it to my project. but I get confused and I feel myself going in wrong path. Also, I am supposed should use some protocols like MODBUS…. etc.

Forgive me for writing so long and I wish you help and guide me to reach my goal of designing multiple ethernet and SSF transceivers using FPGA

Briefly my questions for you are

According to my goals as I mentioned before what should I do to design my own FPGA circuit and implement the ETHERNET and SFF transceiver modules with it?

Which FPGA should I buy?

Which FPGA development board should I use?

Which software should I use to design the FPGA?

I need any reference designs, books, courses or a good path to finish this part of my project as soon as possible.

If you read until here thank you very much and I am looking forward for your advice.

Sincerely, 

[Tesla DeLorean]

Sounds like you're seriously over your skis here. I doubt you have to resources or time to reinvent this.

Perhaps look for some commercial IP implementing the Ethernet functionality to grasp some idea of the complexity and gate count. Perhaps there are some open cores

Would recommend you prototype with off-the-shelf Ethernet switch ICs, and see if your data needs, and overall network topology really dictate the level of complexity you're proposing.

[PatrickF]

Hi @Zaim​ ,

when you say "the experts says that ethernet switches are not good in real time data transferring", do you have a idea of what "real-time" mean for you ? Is it ns, us, ms, seconds ?

I think that overall, the ethernet switches will not add significant latency compare to your Linux software and drivers in a global system view.

For low latency Ethernet (i.e. much below ms), there is some implementation like Ethercat or similar (and TSN in future) which are think currently need to involve external components for that (and maybe not supported by STM32MP1 natively).

Regards.