ThunderSWITCH™ Rumbles Through to Small Office Desktops
Texas Instruments Announces Unique 8/2 Ethernet Switch
DALLAS (Aug. 18, 1997) -- Designed for small office applications, the new TNETX3100 Desktop ThunderSWITCH 8/2 was announced today by Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN). The device -- a highly integrated, single-chip, shared-memory switch -- is based on TI's ThunderSWITCH scalable switching architecture. The ThunderSWITCH architecture has shipped more than one million ports to date, primarily in the corporate desktop market. The Desktop 8/2 device promises to offer the same robust features and benefits for the small office market.
The TNETX3100 integrates eight 10 Mb/s and two 10/100 Ethernet media access controllers (MACs) into a single 240-pin package. All ports on the TNETX3100 are full-duplex capable and are designed to support multiple addresses. Further address expansion is made possible with the TNETX15AE address engine which supports more than 1,000 addresses. The TNETX3100’s high-speed switching engine is able to forward packets from multiple addresses in either cut-through or store-and-forward mode of operations.
"Our desktop ThunderSWITCH device, designed for small office connections, leverages our current ThunderSWITCH architecture," Neela Patel, product marketing manager for TI, said. "Because it supports a number of addresses internally, we see it as an inexpensive way to aggregate 10 Mbp repeaters, allowing higher performance over shared connections."
Patel said the chips will be priced aggressively. "We want to enable OEMs to build a complete solution for a price of about $15 per port. This enables the final port price to end user, to be well under $50," she said. TI also will offer a unique and very complete reference kit with the chip which will significantly shorten design time for OEMs. The kit will have all the components necessary to build a market-ready solution, including board and enclosure schematics, Gerber files, software to test diagnostic and complete chip documentation. This reference kit will not only speed the time-to-market, it will also enable non-traditional switch manufacturers to enter the market quickly and at a good price point.
In addition, Patel notes, the TNETX3100 is capable of integration into products which can complement small routers in branch offices. This will enable the growth of the $7 billion switching market by allowing the desktop market segment to migrate to switching -- cost-prohibitive in the past because switch products have not been available nor affordable. The Desktop ThunderSWITCH is helping to create a new market for switching because of its low price point and the ease of solution manufacturing.
Desktop ThunderSWITCHs Robust Features and Benefits
In addition to the eight 10 Mb/s MACs and two 10/100 Mb/s MAC uplinks, the Desktop ThunderSWITCH integrates a system interface that reduces the number of external components required. All MACs are terminated with media-independent interfaces using the 8/2 7-wire serial network interface (SNI) for connection to standard physical layer (PHY) devices. Easily adaptable to network management, the device supports on-chip per-port storage for Etherstat and Remote Monitoring (RMON) for Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). VLAN capabilities and additional address support can be achieved through an external device such as the TNETX15VE, TI's VLAN address engine. Other features include an LED interface to monitor link activity, flow-control indication and port status. The TNETX3100's EEPROM interface allows for auto-configuration. No CPU (central processing unit) is required, enabling designers to put together the lowest-cost switching solution possible.
Since the typical location for the Desktop ThunderSWITCH 8/2 chips will not be climate controlled or even air conditioned, the TNETX3100 is designed using 3.3-volt technology with low power dissipation for fanless operation.
The Desktop ThunderSWITCH 8/2 is designed to work with the full TI ThunderSWITCH family of switching products. The family has a full line of Ethernet products such as the highly integrated TNETE2014 physical layer device which integrates four 10Base-T physical layer devices onto a single chip. It supports the IEEE half- or full-duplex Auto Negotiation standard, which allows the device to automatically establish the highest speed connection possible. It also integrates all wave shaping and filtering components onto the chip, further simplifying the design.
TI's Network Technology Center (NTC) developed a superset of industry standard test suites for system level verification on the Desktop ThunderSWITCH. Testing is complete on the device and results will be made available to customers, speeding their internal verification process. TI is able to offer this robust test capability because of the NTC's core competency as an industry-leading networking lab.
All of the various components are available now from TI.
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Trademark:
ThunderSWITCH is a trademark of Texas Instruments Incorporated.
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