HOUSTON (March 20, 1995) -- Texas Instruments announced today the availability of a high-performance networking architecture flexible enough to support 10 Base-T, 100 Base-T and 100 VG-AnyLAN protocols. The ThunderLAN™ architecture offers networking managers the ability to support any one of these protocols with a single silicon and driver software implementation and to upgrade at any time.
The ThunderLAN architecture is designed to pack TI's silicon expertise into a modular, highly-integrated family of devices. With ThunderLAN's simple design, networking solutions providers can shorten product development cycle times and significantly decrease time to market.
"Networking managers and end users need to be able to choose the protocol and wiring media they want at any given time," said Joe Valente, ThunderLAN program manager. "ThunderLAN offers the flexibility to use 10 Base-T now and provide seamless support for either of the high-speed Ethernet standards when their networking requirements demand it."
At the heart of the ThunderLAN architecture is a single-chip peripheral component interconnect (PCI)/10 Base-T device. The TNETE110, or ThunderLAN LITE™, is the first member of the ThunderLAN family of devices. It is fully 802.3 compatible and will allow TI customers to deliver a 10 Base-T only solution that provides architectural upgradeability, via common drivers and common package and pinout, with the more full-featured ThunderLAN TNETE100 device.
For systems designers, meeting networking demands is simplified with ThunderLAN's single silicon and software solution. ThunderLAN LITE is a highly-integrated, single-chip 10 Base-T/PCI solution that makes direct connection to standard Ethernet simple. With a 10 Base-T physical interface on board and no external memory or glue logic required to connect to the PCI bus, 10 Base-T/PCI designs are simplified. To implement a 10 Base-T design, ThunderLAN requires only an oscillator, an EEPROM, magnetics and a connector.
The second member of the ThunderLAN family, the TNETE100 device, was developed to enable networking systems providers to upgrade easily to faster protocols as bandwidth requirements grow. With an industry standard media independent interface (MII), ThunderLAN can directly connect to any MII compliant 100 Mbps transceiver defined for the 802.3U 100 Base-T or the 802.12 100VG-AnyLAN services. In 100VG-AnyLAN mode, the TNETE100 will transport both Ethernet and token ring packets.
"The LAN landscape is changing rapidly, and with ThunderLAN, we've designed an upgrade system that eliminates the need for changing boards, jumpers and drivers just to get to the next level of performance," said Valente.
"Today's networking professionals want the freedom of choice and flexibility to change protocols without the time and financial burdens typically associated with upgrading. The Texas Instruments ThunderLAN architecture frees users from being locked in to any one standard," said Tam Dell'Oro, senior industry analyst at Dataquest.
In addition to N-way™ support, ThunderLAN's exclusive Adaptive Performance Optimization (APO) feature senses the speed of the host system and the network, and dynamically allocates resources to eliminate data over- or under-runs, insuring minimum latency. APO can eliminate the need for re-transmission of data, which minimizes wait time throughout the architecture.
Future plans for the ThunderLAN architecture include TI-designed physical layer devices and a version of the architecture for internetworking requirements.
The TNETE100 and TNETE110 ThunderLAN networking devices are currently sampling, with production planned for the second quarter. ThunderLAN will be available directly from Texas Instruments at a suggested unit resale price of $20 for the TNETE110 and $30 for the TNETE100 in quantities of 10,000.
Initial ThunderLAN products will be packaged in standard plastic quad flat packs (PQFP) with later deliverables, expected during the second half of 1995, packaged in thin quad flat pack (TQFP) CardBus compatible packages.
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Trademarks:
ThunderLAN and ThunderLAN LITE are trademarks of Texas Instruments Incorporated.
N-Way is a trademark of National Semiconductor.
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