New Single-Chip Devices Extend Texas Instruments' Lead in Ethernet, Fast Ethernet and Gigabit LAN Switching

ThunderSWITCH I Product Family Complete Switching Solutions for Desktop Connectivity

ThunderSWITCH II Product Family Complete Switching Solutions for Desktop Connectivity

News Releases

Publications:
Details on Signal Processing
Integration Magazine
Mixed Signal Showcase

Trade Shows

Search the News Archives

The ThunderSWITCH I products offer several unique features that increase their performance, functionality and economy for developing Ethernet switches. All ThunderSWITCH I devices support cut-through and store-and-forward modes of operation, as well as user-defined virtual LANs (VLANs). To reduce cost and number of pins, these devices utilize a pin optimized synchronous PHY interface with the TI TNETE2008 Octal 10MB PHY, an interface that reduces pin count by over 75%. The ThunderSWITCH I products are the lowest-power switches available today; each has been fabricated in TI's 0.25um process technology and has a core that operates at 2.5V. "Because each product within the ThunderSWITCH I family supports the same feature set, networking OEMs can build switches of various port densities with the same functionality on a common platform. No other silicon vendor offers this kind of breadth and depth in the 10Mb space," said Karuna Uppal, Texas Instruments product marketing manager. "The ThunderSWITCH I devices deliver the most cost-effective solutions for everything from the corporate to the home-office desktop environment."

Additional features include:

• Port trunking, which enables users to combine the 10/100 ports into a single logical channel for high-performance switch-to-switch or switch-to-server uplinks

• Port mirroring, which allows user's to mirror traffic from one port on the switch to any other port, allowing for simplified network monitoring

• Full or half-duplex operation on all ports enhances switch performance. Compliance with the latest IEEE standards, including 802.1q, 802.1p and 802.3x, improves overall network performance and ensures interoperability with other equipment

• Per port gathering of Etherstat and Remote Monitoring (RMON) statistics reduces load on the management CPU

• Internal network management port allows all external ports to be utilized for switching

"Users of Ethernet switches built with the ThunderSWITCH I devices will benefit from lower-cost networking solutions that offer higher performance, ease of implementation and a rich feature set," concluded Uppal. "These features will enable the faster, more efficient networks required to support today's high-bandwidth applications."

Choices for High-Density Switches

The TI ThunderSWITCH I and ThunderSWITCH II solutions also provide Networking OEMs a choice for creating higher-density stackable switches. By utilizing the common link aggregation scheme, vendors can create solutions that can scale up to 192 10Mb ports and multiple 10/100Mb uplinks, delivering increased bandwidth to users at a very attractive price per port.

Additional information on TI's ThunderSWITCH product family can be found on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ti.com/sc/docs/network/nbuhomex.htm