Several Physical Media Supported

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Logical Link Control LLC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAC Control (optional)

 

 

 

 

Data Link Layer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Media Access Control MAC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PLS

 

 

Reconciliation

 

Reconciliation

 

Reconciliation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MII

 

 

 

MII

 

 

 

GMII

 

 

 

 

AUI

 

 

 

 

PLS

 

 

PCS

 

 

PCS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUI

 

 

 

PMA

 

 

PMA

PHY

 

PMA (MAU)

 

 

 

PMA

 

 

PMD

 

 

PMD

 

 

 

MDI

 

 

 

 

MDI

 

 

 

MDI

 

 

 

MDI

 

 

 

 

Medium

 

 

Medium

 

Medium

 

Medium

 

 

1-10 Mbit/s

 

 

10 Mbit/s

 

100 Mbit/s

 

1000 Mbit/s

 

AUI Attachment Unit Interface, PLS

Physical Layer Signaling, MDI Medium Dependent Interface

PCS Physical Coding Sublayer, MII

Media Independent Interface, GMII

Gigabit Media Independent

Interface, PMA

Physical Medium Attachment, MAU Medium Attachment Unit, PMD Physical Medium

Dependent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(C) Herbert Haas 2005/03/11

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The diagram above shows various physical media designs supported by the official GE standard. Each modern GE card could theoretically support the old 10 Mbit/s standard as well. However many vendors create GE NICs that only support GE or GE and FE—who would connect a precious GE interface with another interface, which is 100 times slower?

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