Ethernet
IEEE STANDARDS
• In 1985, the Computer Society of the IEEE
started a project, called Project 802, to set
standards to enable intercommunication among
equipment from a variety of manufacturers.
• Project 802 does not seek to replace any part of
the OSI or the Internet model.
• Instead, it is a way of specifying functions of the
physical layer and the data link layer of major
LAN protocols.
Relationship of the 802 Standard to
the traditional OSI model
STANDARD ETHERNET
MAC Sublayer
802.3 MAC frame
Preamble
• The first field of the 802.3 frame contains 7 bytes
(56 bits) of alternating 0’s and 1’s that alerts the
receiving system to the coming frame and
enables it to synchronize its input timing.
• The pattern provides only an alert and a timing
pulse.
• The 56-bit pattern allows the stations to miss
some bits at the beginning of the frame.
Start frame delimiter (SFD).
• The second field (l byte: 10101011) signals the
beginning of the frame.
• The SFD warns the station or stations that this is
the last chance for synchronization.
• The last 2 bits is 11 and alerts the receiver that
the next field is the destination address.
Destination address (DA).
• The DA field is 6 bytes and contains the physical
address of the destination station or stations to
receive the packet.
Source address (SA).
• The SA field is also 6 bytes and contains the
physical address of the sender of the packet.
Length or type.
• This field is defined as a type field or length field.
• The original Ethernet used this field as the type
field to define the upper-layer protocol using the
MAC frame.
• The IEEE standard used it as the length field to
define the number of bytes in the data field.
Data.
• This field carries data encapsulated from the
upper-layer protocols.
• It is a minimum of 46 and a maximum of 1500
bytes
CRC.
• The last field contains error detection information,
in this case a CRC-32
Frame Length
• An Ethernet frame needs to have a minimum
length of 512 bits or 64 bytes.
• The standard defines the maximum length of a
frame (without preamble and SFD field) as 1518
bytes.
• The maximum length restriction has two
historical reasons.
• First, memory was very expensive when
Ethernet was designed: a maximum length
restriction helped to reduce the size of the buffer.
• Second, the maximum length restriction
prevents one station from monopolizing the
shared medium, blocking other stations that
have data to send.
Addressing
• Each station on an Ethernet network (such as a
PC, workstation, or printer) has its own network
interface card (NIC).
• The NIC fits inside the station and provides the
station with a 6-byte physical address.
• A source address is always a unicast address-
the frame comes from only one station.
• The destination address, however, can be
unicast, multicast, or broadcast.
• The least significant bit of the first byte defines
the type of address.
• If the bit is 0, the address is unicast; otherwise, it
is multicast.
The broadcast
destination address is
a special case of
the multicast address
in which all bits are1’s.
Access Method: CSMA/CD
• Slot time =round-trip time + time required to
send the jam sequence.
• The slot time in Ethernet is defined in bits. It is
the time required for a station to send 512 bits.
• This means that the actual slot time depends on
the data rate; for traditional 10-Mbps Ethernet it
is 51.2 μs.
Choice of a 512-bit slot time?
• In the first case, assume that the sender sends a
minimum-size packet of 512 bits.
• If there is another signal at the end of the
network (worst case), a collision occurs.
• The sender abort the sending of the frame and
send a jam sequence to inform other stations of
the collision.
• The round-trip time plus the time required to
send the jam sequence should be less than the
time needed for the sender to send the minimum
frame, 512 bits.
• The sender needs to be aware of the collision
before it is too late, that is, before it has sent the
entire frame.
A Packet starts at B A Packet at time tp- B
(a) time 0 (b)
Collision occurs Jam sequence gets
A at time tp B A back to A at 2tp B
(c) (d)
Jam sequence Jam sequence
• In the second case, the sender sends a frame
larger than the minimum size (between 512 and
1518 bits).
• In this case, if the station has sent out the first
512 bits and has not heard a collision, it is
guaranteed that collision will never occur during
the transmission of this frame.
• The reason is that the signal will reach the end
of the network in less than one-half the slot time.
• If all stations follow the CSMA/CD protocol, they
have already sensed the existence of the signal
(carrier) on the line and have refrained from
sending.
Slot Time and Maximum Network
Length
• It is dependent on the propagation speed of the
signal in the particular medium.
• In most transmission media,the signal
propagates at 2 x 108 m/s
We need to consider the delay times in repeaters and interfaces, and the time
required to send the jam sequence.
These reduce the maximum-length of a traditional Ethernet network to 2500 m.
Physical Layer
• All standard implementations use digital
signaling (baseband) at 10 Mbps.
• At the sender, data are converted to a digital
signal using the Manchester scheme; at the
receiver, the received signal is interpreted as
Manchester and decoded into data.
Manchester Encoding
n 1 is represented by negative going edge.
n 0 is represented by positive going edge
n Require twice the bandwidth
10Base5: Thick Ethernet
• The transceiver is responsible for transmitting,
receiving, and detecting collisions.
• The transceiver is connected to the station via a
paths for sending and receiving.
• If a length of more than 500 m is needed, up to
five segments, each a maximum of 500meter,
can be connected using repeaters.
10Base2: Thin Ethernet
• Also uses a bus topology, but the cable is much
thinner and more flexible.
• In this case, the transceiver is normally part of
the network interface card (NIC).
• More cost effective because thin coaxial cable is
less expensive than thick coaxial and the tee
connections are much cheaper than taps.
• The length of each segment cannot exceed 185
m (close to 200 m) due to the high level of
attenuation in thin coaxial cable.
10Base-T: Twisted-Pair Ethernet
• 10Base-T uses a physical star topology.
• The stations are connected to a hub via two
pairs of twisted Cable.
• Two pairs of twisted cable create two paths (one
for sending and one for receiving) between the
station and the hub.
• Any collision here happens is in the hub.
• The maximum length of the twisted cable here is
defined as 100 m, to minimize the effect of
attenuation in the twisted cable.
10Base-F: Fiber Ethernet
•10Base-F uses a star topology to connect stations to a hub.
•The stations are connected to the hub using two fiber-optic cables
Bridged Ethernet
• The division of a LAN by bridges.
• Bridges have two effects on an Ethernet
LAN:
• They raise the bandwidth and they
separate collision domains.
Sharing bandwidth
• A bridge divides the network into two or more
networks.
• Bandwidth-wise, each network is independent.
• A network with 12 stations is divided into two
networks, each with 6 stations.
• Now each network has a capacity of 10 Mbps.
The 10-Mbps capacity in each segment is now
shared between 6 stations (actually 7 because
the bridge acts as a station in each segment),
not 12 stations.
• In a network with a heavy load, each station
theoretically is offered 10/6 Mbps instead of
10/12 Mbps, assuming that the traffic is not
going through the bridge.
• It is obvious that if we further divide the network,
we can gain more bandwidth for each segment.
• Another advantage of a bridge is the separation
of the collision domain.
• The collision domain becomes much smaller
and the probability of collision is reduced
Switched Ethernet
• The idea of a bridged LAN can be extended to a
switched LAN.
• Instead of having two to four networks, why not
have N networks, where N is the number of
stations on the LAN?
• In this way, the bandwidth is shared only
between the station and the switch (5 Mbps
each).
• In addition, the collision domain is divided into N
domains.
Full-Duplex Ethernet
• One of the limitations of 10Base5 and 10Base2
is that communication is half-duplex (10Base-T
is always full-duplex);
• A station can either send or receive, but may not
do both at the same time.
• The next step in the evolution was to move from
switched Ethernet to full-duplex switched
Ethernet.
• The full-duplex mode increases the capacity of
each domain from 10 to 20 Mbps.
• No Need for CSMA/CD
• In a full duplex switched Ethernet, each station is
connected to the switch via two separate links.
• Each station or switch can send and receive
independently without worrying about collision.
• Each link is a point-to-point dedicated path
between the station and the switch.
• There is no longer a need for carrier sensing;
there is no longer a need for collision detection.
• MAC Control Layer
• Standard Ethernet was designed as a
connectionless protocol at the MAC sublayer.
• There is no explicit flow control or error control to
inform the sender that the frame has arrived at
the destination without error.
• When the receiver receives the frame, it does
not send any positive or negative
acknowledgment.
• To provide for flow and error control in full-
duplex switched Ethernet, a new sublayer, called
the MAC control, is added between the LLC
sublayer and the MAC sublayer.
FAST ETHERNET
The goals of Fast Ethernet can be summarized as
follows:
1. Upgrade the data rate to 100 Mbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard ethernet.
3. Keep the same 48-bit address.
4. Keep the same frame format.
5. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame
lengths.
• MAC Sublayer
• A main consideration in the evolution of Ethernet
from 10 to 100 Mbps was to keep the MAC
sublayer untouched.
• However, a decision was made to drop the bus
topologies and keep only the star topology.
• For the star topology, : half duplex and full
duplex.
• In the half-duplex approach, the stations are
connected via a hub;
• In the full-duplex approach, the connection is
made via a switch with buffers at each port.
• Autonegotiation
• Autonegotiation allows two devices to negotiate
the mode or data rate of operation.
• It was designed particularly for the following
purposes:
To allow incompatible devices to connect to one
another. For example, a device with a maximum
capacity of 10 Mbps can communicate with a
device with a 100 Mbps capacity (but can work at
a lower rate).
To allow one device to have multiple capabilities.
To allow a station to check a hub's capabilities.
GIGABIT ETHERNET
• The goals of the Gigabit Ethernet design can be
summarized as follows:
1. Upgrade the data rate to 1 Gbps.
2. Make it compatible with Standard or Fast
Ethernet.
3. Use the same 48-bit address.
4. Use the same frame format.
5. Keep the same minimum and maximum frame
lengths.
[Link] support autonegotiation as defined in Fast
Ethernet.
• MAC Sublayer
• Gigabit Ethernet has two distinctive approaches
for medium access: half-duplex and full-duplex.
• In full-duplex mode, there is a central switch
connected to all computers or other switches.
• In the full-duplex mode of Gigabit Ethernet, there
is no collision;
• The maximum length of the cable is determined
by the signal attenuation in the cable.
• Gigabit Ethernet can also be used in half-duplex
mode, although it is rare.
• In this case,a switch can be replaced by a hub,
which acts as the common cable in which a
collision might occur.
• The half-duplex approach uses CSMA/CD.
• The maximum length of the network in this
approach is totally dependent on the minimum
frame size.
