Looking for Intelligent NIC on PCI/Intel/Linux

[Scott C. Karlin]

I am trying to nail down components for an architecture to support
extensible IP routing.  Specifically, I am looking for a card which
will plug into a PCI slot on a PC.  The card needs to have a
programmable CPU and one or more network interfaces which are
either 100BaseTX or Gigabit Ethernet.

The PC will be running Linux.  I expect the CPU on the card will
run some form of RTOS such as RTEMS (http://www.rtems.com/).
The network interface on the card may or may not use a Tulip chip.

I have identified two specific possibilities and one non-specific
possibility:

   1.  The Matrox 100 Multiport NIC+ which has four 10BaseT/100BaseTX
       ports and an on-board i960.
       (http://www.matrox.com/netweb/products/multiport.htm)

   2.  The Ramix PMC644 which has two 10BaseT/100BaseTX ports and
       an on-board i960 at 33MHz.  This is a PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card)
       and would need an adapter from Ramix to make it work in
       a typical PC slot.  This board is based on the Tulip chip.
       (http://www.ramix.com/pmcnet/pmc664.html)

   3.  Use a generic single board computer (SBC) which can plug into
       an active PCI bus (not just a passive backplane) and has
       a PMC connector along with a PMC network interface.

My concerns with 1 or 2 is that the manufacturer may not support
outside developers of code for the onboard CPU.  For option 3, I
am having trouble finding a source for a appropriate SBC.

Any suggestions, pointers, or comments will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Scott

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Scott C. Karlin                             Princeton University
Graduate Student                            Department of Computer Science
Voice: (609) 258-5386                       35 Olden Street
Email: scott@cs.princeton.edu               Princeton, NJ 08544-2087
WWW:   http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~scott
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