A survey of highly integrated Ethernet DataComm devices

This paper will discuss Ethernet communication device controllers and architectures which are helping to bridge the gap between exponentially rising system I/O bandwidth requirements of network applications, and current processor performance. Discussed in this paper will be a survey of innovative silicon solutions that have been developed for specific Ethernet switching applications in the areas of user media access. Covered are the four basic architectural choices for implementing switching solutions: general purpose integrated communications processors, standard product Ethernet devices, custom ASIC's and Network Processors.