ETHERNET (IEEE 802.

3)

Most popular LAN

Transmission medium is thick co-axial cable
Ethernet refers to the cable the ether
Before transmitting, a computer first listen to the cable to
see if someone else was already transmitting. Wait until
it is finished.
A problem still arise what happens if 2 or more
computers are waiting?
Solution each computer listen during its own
transmission and if it detects interference, jam the ether
to alter all senders.
Then back off and wait a random time before retrying.
If a second collision happens, the random waiting time is
doubled and so onand give one of them a chance to
go first .

 Advantages:
It is versatile- suit many applications
It is easy to use-no need to design the hardware interface or..
A wide selection of products is available-hardware, software, debugging
tools are available..
The hardware controls network access-hardware manages the network
traffic and no need for software to control network access
It is fast-supports from 10Mbps to 10Gbps
It can span long distances
Interfaces are electrically isolated
The cost id reasonable

Limits:
Cost-if keeping the cost to an absolute minimum is essential, there are
cheaper interfaces that are suitable for some applications like RS-485..
Real-time limits-does not support real time transfers with minimum delay
Efficiency- not very efficient when transferring small amount of data. to
transmit 1byte of data, 26 bytes-overhead, 45 bytes of padding..
Power consumption-at 5V, power consumption is around 50mA

 Ethernet is not the only LAN standard token bus (802.4) and token
ring (802.5)
Wireless LAN standard WiFi (802.11)
Four types of cabling are commonly used:
Name

Cable

Max.seg

Nodes/seg.

Advantages

10Base5

Thick coax

500m

100

Original
cable, now
obsolete

Thin coax

185m

30

No hub
needed

(thick Ethernet)

10Base2
(thin Ethernet)

10Base-T

Twisted pair 100m

1024

Cheapest
system

10Base-F

Fiber optics

1024

Best between
buildings

2000m

 Cable topologies Linear, Spine, Tree, Segmented

10Base5 it operates at 10Mbps (speed), uses base band
signaling and can support segments upto 500meters.
Connections are made using taps, in which a pin is very
carefully forced halfway in to the coaxial cables core.
10Base2- connections to it are made using industry standard
BNC(Bayonet Neill Concelman - a coaxial RF connector designed to
work at radio frequencies in the multi-megahertz range.) connectors to form
T junctions. BNC connectors are easier to use and more
reliable. Thin Ethernet is much cheaper and easier to install,
but it can run only 185 meters per segment, each can handle
only 30 machines.
Detecting cable breaks, excessive length, bad taps, or loose
connectors can be a major problem with both the media.
It is overcome by all stations have a cable running to a central
hub in which they are all connected electrically.

 10Base-T- twisted pair cables, hubs do not

buffer incoming traffic. There is no shared cable
at all. A hub to which each station is connected
by a dedicated cable. Adding or removing
stations is simpler, cable breaks can be detected
easily. Disadvantage max cable length from
hub is 100m.
10Base-F- use fiber optics. Expensive due to
the cost of connectors and terminators, but has
excellent noise immunity. It can run up to km.
To allow larger networks, multiple cables can be
connected by repeaters. It is a physical layer
device.

Manchester encoding
None of the versions of Ethernet uses straight binary
encoding with 0 volts for 0 bit and 5volts for 1bit.
A way for receivers to unambiguously determine the start,
middle and end of a bit without reference to an external clock.
Two approaches
Manchester encoding
Each bit period is divided into two equal intervals. A binary 1
bit is sent by having the voltage set low during the first interval
and high in the second interval. A binary 0 is just the reverse
first high then low. This scheme ensures that every bit
period has a transition in the middle, making it easier for the
receiver to synchronize with the sender.

 Disadvantage it requires twice as much bandwidth as

straight binary encoding because the pulses are half the
width.
Eg. to send data at 10Mbps, the signal has to change
20million times/sec.
Differential Manchester encoding
Here a 1 bit is indicated by the absence of a transition at
the start of the interval. A 0 bit is indicated by the
presence of a transition at the start of the interval. There
is a transition at the middle. It requires more complex
equipment but offers better noise immunity.
All Ethernet systems use Manchester encoding due to its
simplicity.

Ethernet frame structure

IEEE 802.3 frame structure

Preamble SOF destination add Source add Length data frame check sequence

Each frame starts with a preamble of 7bytes, and I byte for a start of frame
delimiter
Preamble bits are required to synchronize the receivers clock with the
senders.
The frame contains two addresses, one for the destination and one for
the source.
For 10Mbps base band standard 6-byte address are used
The higher order bit of the destination address 0 ordinary address
-1 group address. Multiple stations listen to a single address
Sending to a group of stations is called multicast.
Address consisting of all 1s broadcast.
The frame containing all 1s in the destination field is accepted by all
stations on the network.

 A multicast frame is sent to a selected group of stations on the

Ethernet.
A broadcast frame is sent to all stations on the Ethernet.
Multicast is more selective. But involves group management
Broadcasting is coarser but does not require any group
management
Another feature of addressing use of bit 46(adjacent to HO bit) to
distinguish local address from global address.
Local addresses are assigned by each network administrator and
have no significance outside the local network
Global addresses are assigned centrally by IEEE to ensure that no
two stations anywhere in the world have the same global address.
Length field tells the receiver what to do with the frame. It
specifies which process to give the frame to. Any number lesser
than or equal to 1500 can be a length field.
Data upto 1500bytes. Ethernet requires that valid frames must be
at least 64bytes long, from destination address to check sum,
including both.
If the data portion of the frame is less than 46bytes, the pad field is
used to fill out the frame to the minimum size

 Another reason for having a minimum length frame is to prevent a

station from completing the transmission of a short frame before the
first bit has even reached the far end of the cable, where it may
collide with another frame
If a station tries to transmit a very short frame, a collision occurs, but
the transmission completes before the noise burst gets back at 2.
The sender will then incorrectly conclude that the frame was
successfully sent. To prevent this situation, all frames must take
more than 2T to send so that the transmission is still taking place
when the noise burst gets back to the sender.
For a 10Mbps LAN with a max. length of 2500meters and 4
repeaters, the round trip time has been determined to be nearly
50microsec in the worst case.
At 10Mbps, a bit takes 100nsec, so 500bits or round off to 512
bits(64bytes) is the smallest frame that is guaranteed to work.
As the network speed goes up, the min. frame length must go up or
the max. cable length must come down proportionally.
Check sum it is effectively a 32-bit hash code of the data. If some
data bits are erroneously received the check sum will almost be
wrong and the error will be detected. It just does error detection, not
error correction.

Ethernet frames
All data in an Ethernet network travels in structures
called frames. An Ethernet frame has defined fields for
data and other information to help the data get to its
destination and to help the destination computer
determine whether the data has arrived intact.
The Ethernet controllers hardware places information to
be sent in frames for transmitting, and extracts and
stores the information in received frames.

Preamble and start Frame delimiter

The preamble and SOF fields function together. They provide a

predictable bit pattern that enables the interfaces on a 10Mbps
network to synchronize to, or match the timing of a new frame being
transmitted
In any data link, the receiving interface needs to know when to read
the bits in the transmitted data.
Ethernet interfaces are asynchronous, means that the interfaces dont
share a clock.
For a 10Mbps Ethernet, the solution is to begin each frame with a
known bit pattern that contains many transitions. Receiving interfaces
use the pattern to synchronize to or lock onto, the transmitted frames
clock.
The preamble and SOF delimiter fields provide this bit pattern. The
preamble consists of 7 identical bytes, each of with the value
10101010.
The SOF delimiter follows the preamble and consists of the byte
10101011.
After detecting the first transition in the preamble, a receiving interface
uses the transition of the following bits to synchronize to the timing of
the transmitting interface.
The final 2 bits in the SOF delimiter indicate the end of the preamble.

Destination address
Every Ethernet interface has a 48-bit physical or hardware address
that identifies the interface on the network.
The destination address field contains the physical address of the
intended receiver of the frame.
The receiver may be an individual interface or a group of interfaces
identified by a multicast address or a broadcast address.
Every interface in the network reads the destination address of a
received frame. If the address does not match the physical address
or a multicast or broadcast address, the interface ignores the rest of
the frame.
The second bit of the destination address 0 address is assigned
by the manufacturer of the interface
- 1 address is administered locally.
Source address
48-bit physical address of the transmitting interface.

Length/Type field
16-bits that have one of two meanings.
The field can indicate the number of bytes of valid data in the data
field
The protocol used by the data in the field that follows
If the value is less than or equal to
1500 decimal, the value indicates length.
1536 decimal, the length/type field indicates the protocol that the
contents of the data field use.
Values from 1501 to 1535 decimal are undefined
The DIX standard defines this field as type
The original IEEE 802.3 defines this field as length
Data
The data is the information that the transmitting interface wants to read
Data field must be between 46 and 1500 bytes
If the data bits are fewer than 46bytes, the field must include pad bytes
to increase the size to 46 bytes.
If the transmitting interface has more than 1500 bytes to send, it uses
multiple frames
An Ethernet frame must be at least 512 bits(64bytes) not including the
preamble and SOF bits.- size of the frame with min. 45 data bytes.
Receiving interface ignore frames that are shorter than this min. size

Frame check sequence

FCS field enables the receiving interface to detect errors in
the received frame
Electrical noise or other problems in the network can
corrupt a frames content.
A receiving node can detect corrupted data by using the
32-bit CRC value in the frame check sequence field.
The transmitting interface performs a CRC on the bytes to
be sent and places the result in the FCS field. The
receiving interface also performs the same calculation on
the received bytes. If both the results match, the frames
contents are almost certain to be identical to what was
sent.
The Ethernet controllers hardware performs the CRC
calculations on both the sides and on detecting an error in
the received frame it sets a bit in the status register.

Media Access Control

Deciding when to transmit

In half duplex interfaces, only one interface can transmit at a time.
So the interface need a way of deciding when it is OK to transmit.
Ethernet uses a media access control method Carrier Sense Multiple
Access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD)
This method allows any interface to attempt to transmit any time the
network is idle.
If 2 or more interfaces try to transmit at the same time, both wait a bit,
then retry, a collision occurs.
Carrier sense an interface that wants to transmit must monitor the
network and sense or detect when the network is idle (absence of a
carrier)
Multiple access no single interface controls the network traffic. Any
interface can attempt to transmit on a network that has been idle for the
time defined by the interframe gap (IFG)
In a 10Mbps network, IFG = 96 bit times or 9.6 microsecond.
Ethernet controller's hardware handles sending and receiving of frames,
collision detection and deciding when to re-transmit

Responding to collision
A collision results when two interfaces in the same collision domain
try to transmit at the same time.
All of the interfaces that connect via repeater hubs share a collision
domain or interfaces that connect directly via coaxial cable also
share a collision domain.
On detecting a collision, the transmitting interface does not stop
immediately. It continues long enough to be sure that the other
transmitting interfaces have time to detect collision.
A transmitting interface that has detected a collision always finishes
sending the 64bits of the preamble and SOF delimiter. Following
these, the interface sends an additional 32 bits called jam signal,
then stops transmitting.

Delaying before retransmission

After an interface stops transmitting due to collision, the next task is
deciding when to try again.
If two interfaces wait the same amount of time and then retry,
another collision will occur.
The Ethernet standard defines a back off process, where each
interface selects a randomly chosen delay time. This reduces the
chance that two interfaces will retry at the same time
Up to 10 retries
Network limits to ensure collision detection
To prevent an interface from trying to use a frame that has
experienced a collision, a transmitting interface must be able to
detect the collision and abandon the frame before transmitting for
one slot time.
For 10Mbps and fast Ethernet, one slot time = time taken to transmit
512bits.

Ethernet controllers
An embedded system that supports Ethernet requires Ethernet
controller hardware to provide the Ethernet interface
Ethernet communications are typically handled by a combination of
an Ethernet controller chip and device-driver code that communicate
with the controller.
The controller chip handles many of the details of sending and
receiving Ethernet frames.

Receives the message to send and destination address

Calculates Ethernet frame check sequences
Place data, address etc.. in the frames fields
Attempt to transmit the frame when the network is idle
Detects collision
Provide an indication of success or failure of a transmission and
so on..

Ethernet

Ethernet controller

refers to a wired network

is a network controller

is a technology or a agreed upon

standard on how data is to be
moved from place to place.

describes a device or piece of

hardware. ie a NIC - Network interface
controller.

The Ethernet protocol is the

networking backbone for
important networks

Ethernet controller provides a common

and very reliable hardware resource
with which anyone can easily set up and
use a networking environment.

Ethernet delivers the network

security, performance, and
availability required to support
applications

Ethernet controllers handle every

aspect of network communications but

Most widely used LAN

technology

Ethernet controllers are plug and play

Only physical layer functions

Integrate MAC and physical layer

functions

does not monitor network security

compatible

To conclude..
The term Ethernet refers to the family of local-area network (LAN)
products covered by the IEEE 802.3 standard that defines what is
commonly known as the CSMA/CD protocol. Four data rates are
currently defined for operation over optical fiber and twisted-pair
cables:
10 Mbps10Base-T Ethernet
100 MbpsFast Ethernet
1,000 MbpsGigabit Ethernet
10,000 Mbps10 Gigabit Ethernet
Ethernet is currently used for approximately 85 percent of the world's
LAN-connected PCs and workstations. Ethernet is the major LAN
technology because of the following characteristics:
Is easy to understand, implement, manage, and maintain
Allows low-cost network implementations
Provides extensive topological flexibility for network installation
Guarantees successful interconnection and operation of
standards-compliant products, regardless of manufacturer