



SPWS022A - APRIL 1996 - REVISED NOVEMBER 1996
The PCI Local-Bus Specification, Revision 2.0 should be used as a reference with this document.
IEEE Standard 1149.1-1990, IEEE Standard Test-Access Port and Boundary-Scan Architecture
ThunderLAN, Adaptive Performance Optimization, and TI are trademarks of Texas Instruments Incorporated.
Ethernet is a trademark of Xerox Corporation.
Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
ThunderLAN is a high-speed networking architecture that provides a complete PCI-to-10 Base-T/AUI Ethernet solution. The TNETE110A, one implementation of the ThunderLAN architecture, is an intelligent protocol network interface. The ThunderLAN SRAM FIFO-based architecture eliminates the need for external memory and offers a single-chip glueless PCI-to-10 Base-T/AUI (IEEE 802.3) solution with an on-board physical layer interface. See Figure 1.
The glueless PCI interface supports 32-bit streaming, operates at speeds up to 33 MHz and is capable of internal data-transfer rates up to 2 Gbps, taking full advantage of all available PCI bandwidth. The TNETE110A offers jumperless autoconfiguration using PCI configuration read/write cycles. Customizable configuration registers, which can be autoloaded from an external serial EEPROM, allow designers of TNETE110A-based systems to give their systems a unique identification code. The TNETE110A PCI interface, developed in conjunction with other leaders in the semiconductor and computer industries, has been vigorously tested on multiple platforms to ensure compatibility across a wide array of available PCI products. In addition, the ThunderLAN drivers and ThunderLAN architecture use TI's patented adaptive performance optimization (APO) technology to dynamically adjust critical parameters for minimum latency, minimum host CPU utilization, and maximum system performance. This technology ensures that the maximum capabilities of the PCI interface are used by automatically tuning the adapter to the specific system in which it is operating.
An intelligent protocol handler (PH) implements the serial protocols of the network. The PH is designed for minimum overhead related to multiple protocols, using common state machines to implement 95 percent of the total protocol handler. On transmit, the PH serializes data, adds framing and cyclic redundancy check (CRC) fields, and interfaces to the network physical layer (PHY) chip. On receive, it provides address recognition, CRC and error checking, frame disassembly, and deserialization. Data for multiple channels is passed to and from the PH by way of circular-buffer FIFOs in the FIFO SRAM.
Compliant with IEEE Standard 1149.1, the TNETE110A provides a 5-pin test-access port that is used for boundary-scan testing.
The TNETE110A is available in a 144-pin quad flat package and thin quad flat package.
The TNETE110A implements the CIS pointer register as defined in the PC card standard. This register can be found in the PCI configuration registers at offset 28h. For other differences between the TNETE110 and TNETE110A, consult the ThunderLAN Programmer's Guide (literature number SPWU013).
View more information about generic part numbers:TNETE110A
Go to the Engineering Design Center to locate information on other TI Semiconductor devices.



