These Ethernet controllers, available from Soanar - Electronic Component & Supply Chain Solutions , combine a 10/100Base-TX physical interface (PHY) and a Media Access Controller (MAC) which can connect to any PIC microcontroller via an industry-standard Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) or a flexible parallel interface.
Additionally, each ethernet controller has a unique, factory-preprogrammed MAC address and 24 Kbytes of configurable SRAM for packet transmit/receive buffering and data storage. This combination of speed, flexibility and features enables designers to create fast, secure network- and Internet-connected embedded applications with minimized board space, cost and complexity.
Many embedded applications require added security to ensure that only the intended users can gain access to monitor and control a remote network application. The ENC624J600 ethernet controllers integrate hardware cryptographic security engines that perform RSA, Diffie-Hellman, MD5 and SHA-1 algorithm computations in support of cryptographic protocols such as SSL/TLS, SSH and various VPNs.
These integrated hardware features of the etehrnet controllers enable secure data transmissions with reduced code size, faster connection establishment and throughput, and reduced firmware development efforts. Microchip offers a TCP/IP stack that can be used for free with any of its 8-, 16- or 32-bit PIC microcontrollers or dsPIC digital signal controllers. The stack includes Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption and a TCP/IP Configuration Wizard to simplify the configuration of Ethernet projects. Additionally, the Stack utilizes the industry-standard SSLv3 protocol to secure any TCP connection, while building in support for the HTTP Web server and SMTP e-mail client modules.