Overview
Supporting 1000BASE-X, 10GBASE-R, 10GBASE-W, and other protocols, the VSC8258 is a quad serial Ethernet PHY with IEEE 1588-2008 and media access control security (MACsec) support. The VSC8257 is a quad serial Ethernet PHY with IEEE 1588-2008 support. MACsec functions are permanently disabled in a VSC8257 product. There are four bidirectional ports (interchangeably called channel), each consisting of an Rx path (ingress) and a Tx path (egress). The Rx path receives serial data from the line side (RXIN), de-serializes it to 64-bit bus to the processing core, then serializes it back to the appropriate serial stream at the host side (RXOUT). The Tx path receives a serial stream from the host side (TXIN), de-serializes it to 64-bit bus to the processing core, then serializes it back at the line side (TXOUT).
A GUI is provided for the user to control the evaluation board from a PC using a USB cable. The GUI allows the user to configure devices, access registers, and run scripts. The GUI may be used without an evaluation board in a demonstration mode to provide an introduction to the device features.
The default configuration of the evaluation board allows the user to easily connect it to lab equipment such as a high-speed oscilloscope, bit error rate tester, or protocol analyzer (IXIA, Spirent, and so on) through SMA cables or fiber. An external 5 V power supply is required to power to the evaluation board.
