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From: normt@ihlpa.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: Ethernet Controller Chips
Message-ID: <3772@ihlpa.ATT.COM>
Date: Wed, 29-Apr-87 09:42:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpa.3772
Posted: Wed Apr 29 09:42:23 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 1-May-87 01:22:42 EDT
References: <2094@cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 32

In article <2094@cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk>, steve@cheviot.UUCP writes:
> Can anyone give me some information about the relative merits of the Ethernet 
> Controller chips produced by Intel, AMD and NS. Does anyone else manufacture
> similar products?

A while back I went through a review of these chips and a couple others,
(Thomson-Mostek and Rockwell make a 68802 LNET chip, and SEEQ makes a 
8003) Both of these I would NOT recommend, the SEEQ has some severe throughput
problems, since it does not have an on-chip DMA channel. The 68802, to my
knowledge, is a vapor-chip (i.e. non-existant in reality).  The three you
mentioned are all good, with different merits. 

The intel 82586 is good for interfacing to Intel processors, (it is used
in a lot of monitoring equipment, and the AT&T 3BNet cards.) The Lance
(AMD) and the NIC (National) are both excelent quality, we went with the
National, because it is designed to DMA into some local packet buffers,
the NIC does all the buffer management (ring buffers) and all you have to
do is request the next packet and it will DMA (with a second DMA channel)
into your system memory or a fifo interface or whatever. It also is
register directly accessable, you don't need to DMA the instructions into
it. I believe the Lance has instructions and all the buffer management
info DMA'ed into it. A full system is the NIC it's associated Serial Network
Interface (8391), memory and (in my case) 2 373 latches for the system inteface.
(I'm using 2 32Kx8 static rams chips)

But as I said the National and the AMD are very similar, whereas the Intel is
very good for interfacing in an Intel environment.

		Norm Tiedemann		ihnp4!ihlpa!normt
		AT&T Bell Labs
		Naperville, IL
			 60566