Eight-Port Fast Ethernet PHY Boosts Bandwidth & Cuts Power (1)

A jointly developed, eight-port Fast Ethernet switch/physical layer IC is said to increase bandwidth by as much as 50% and reduce power consumption by up to 40% in LAN switches. The device, which will be available as the AL216 from Allayer and as the LU3XS38FT from Lucent, combines the former's switch and MAC with the latter's PHY. By placing three of these ICs on one board, switch OEMs can create a 10/100 LAN switch that is non-blocking to 24 ports. When compared with other devices that are limited to 16-port non-blocking operation, this translates into 50% more bandwidth.The chips also can be combined with their associated management chip and Gigabit Ethernet switch IC to provide added management features and a 2-Gbps link to other LAN switches. See “Eight-Port Fast Ethernet PHY Boosts Bandwidth & Cuts Power (2)”