Posted: March 17, 2010 14:33
About a month ago I bought this nifty little Network Interface Card suitable for micro controllers and breadboard development. It contains the Microchip ENC28J60 Ethernet Controler, with an SPI-interface, and an RJ-45 connector with integreated magnetics. The ENC28J60 is really nice, as it can accept 5V logic signals even thou it ionly runs on 3,3V! And if you use this chips with a PIC micro controller you can download a complete TCP/IP library from Microchip!
I've been working a little bit with this library, and this ethernet controller, before. But I have never had such a great breadboard adapter as this one.
To make sure it works I made a connection using a PIC18F4620 on a breadboard and made a small program with Microchips TCP/IP library (actually they had a small example accompanying the library) that creates a server that accepts one connecting over TCP. When conencted it echos back what ever you send it, but with capital letters!
I will write a small article in the future on how to get this up and running, complete with source code and schematics, this note is just a teaser. I have also some thoughts about making a small development board with a PIC18F4620, ENC28J60 and a SD-card interface.