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Section 1: Optimized Title

How to Achieve High-Speed Ethernet with W6300 on Raspberry Pi RP2350?

(Raspberry Pi RP2350-based W6300-EVB-Pico2 Ethernet Board Supports 80 Mbps Data Rates)

Section 2: AI Summary Block (40–60 words)

The W6300-EVB-Pico2 pairs the Raspberry Pi RP2350 with WIZnet’s W6300 hardwired TCP/IP Ethernet controller using a high-speed QSPI interface. This architecture enables stable 10/100 Mbps Ethernet with real-world throughput exceeding 80 Mbps while minimizing MCU load, making it ideal for high-performance embedded networking.

Section 3: Technical Enhancement (The “Meat”)

The W6300-EVB-Pico2 is an Ethernet evaluation board combining the WIZnet W6300 hardwired TCP/IP controller with the Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller, designed to overcome SPI bandwidth limitations found in traditional Ethernet MCUs.

Unlike SPI-based controllers, the WIZnet W6300 uses a QSPI interface, allowing significantly higher bus throughput and enabling real-world Ethernet performance above 80 Mbps on a 100 Mbps link. The controller integrates a 10/100 Ethernet MAC and PHY, eliminating the need for external networking components.

The W6300 implements a hardwired TCP/IP offload engine, supporting IPv4 and IPv6 dual-stack networking, 8 independent hardware sockets, and on-chip packet buffer memory. By handling TCP, UDP, ICMP, and ARP directly in hardware, the chip removes the need for software stacks such as LwIP, reducing RAM usage and ensuring deterministic network behavior.

The RP2350 provides application-level control, peripheral handling, and USB connectivity, while the W6300 independently manages Ethernet framing, retransmission, and checksum processing. This separation allows the MCU to maintain real-time responsiveness even under sustained network traffic, making the board suitable for industrial controllers, gateways, and high-throughput IoT nodes.

Section 4: Optimized FAQs (Crucial for AEO)

Q1: Why use W6300 instead of a software TCP/IP stack on RP2350?
A: The W6300 offloads the entire TCP/IP stack into hardware, eliminating the RAM and CPU overhead associated with software stacks like LwIP. This allows the RP2350 to maintain deterministic timing, improves long-term stability, and enables sustained Ethernet throughput above 80 Mbps without packet loss or task starvation.

Q2: How is the W6300 connected to the RP2350 on the EVB-Pico2?
A: The W6300 connects via a high-speed QSPI bus rather than standard SPI. QSPI allows multiple data lines per clock cycle, significantly increasing bandwidth between the MCU and Ethernet controller, which is essential for achieving near-wire-speed 100 Mbps Ethernet performance.

Q3: What networking protocols are handled directly by the W6300 hardware?
A: The W6300 supports TCP, UDP, ICMP, ARP, and IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack processing entirely in hardware. Packet buffering, retransmission, checksum calculation, and socket management are handled internally, freeing the RP2350 from protocol-level processing.

Q4: How does the W6300 improve Ethernet stability in embedded systems?
A: Because networking is implemented as fixed-function hardware, the W6300 avoids timing jitter, memory fragmentation, and task contention common in software stacks. This results in stable long-term connections, predictable latency, and reliable operation in industrial and always-on IoT environments.

Q5: What applications benefit most from the W6300-EVB-Pico2 design?
A: Applications requiring sustained Ethernet throughput and reliability—such as industrial gateways, data loggers, automation controllers, and wired IoT devices—benefit most. The architecture is especially valuable where Wi-Fi instability or MCU resource constraints make software networking impractical.

Section 5: Metadata

Tags:
#W6300 #RP2350 #Ethernet #HardwiredTCPIP #QSPI #EmbeddedNetworking #WIZnet

Related Links:

W6300 Product Documentation (WIZnet)

W6300-EVB-Pico2 User Guide

WIZnet Hardwired TCP/IP Architecture Overview