Ethernet Gets System-On-A-Chip

Developed jointly by Lucent Technologies Microelectronics Group and Allayer Technologies Corp., a Fast Ethernet switch/physical layer (PHY) IC can increase bandwidth by up to 50% and reduce power consumption by as much as 40% in LAN switches. The device has an eight-port Fast Ethernet switch and media access controller (MAC) combined with an eight-port PHY on a single chip. Using three of these devices on a PCB, switch manufacturers can create a 10/100 LAN switch that is non-blocking up to 24 ports. Other approaches are limited to 16 ports of non-blocking operation. The new devices are scaleable up to 32 ports. The devices can be combined with their associated management chips and Gigabit Ethernet switch chips to provide additional management features and a high-speed connection of 2 gigabits/s to other LAN switches. Workgroup and desktop applications can eliminate from three to 24 devices in a typical 24-port switch configuration.