Module 7

Ethernet
Technologies
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Legacy Ethernet
10BASE2

10BASE5

10BASE-T

Same Timing Parameters. . .

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Legacy Ethernet
10BASE2

10BASE5

10BASE-T

Same Frame Format. . .

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Legacy Ethernet
10BASE2

10BASE5

10BASE-T

Same Transmission Process. . .

Manchester
Line
Encoding
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Legacy Ethernet
10BASE2

10BASE5

10BASE-T

Same Basic Design Rule or common architectural features. . .

5 segments connected on the network
4 repeaters
3 segments of the 5 segments can have stations connected. The
other two segments must be inter-repeater link segments with no
stations connected.

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10BASE5 & 10BASE2

10BASE5

Thick Coax cable

Inexpensive
No configuration
500 m segment length
Half-duplex mode

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10BASE2
Thin Coax cable
185 m segment length
Half-duplex mode

10BASE-T

Cheaper & easier to install

Used Category 3 UTP at first
Can also use Category 5 or 5e UTP
RJ-45 connectors
Star or extended star topology
Shared bus device (hub)
Transmit pair on the receiving side are connected to
the receiving pair
Half (10 Mbps) or Full (20 Mbps) Duplex
100 m segment length
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Fast Ethernet
100BASE-TX

100BASE-FX

Copper UTP

Multimode
optical fiber

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Fast Ethernet
100BASE-TX

100BASE-FX

Timing parameters are the same

Frame format is the same
2 separate encoding steps
4B/5B
2nd part specific to the media (copper or fiber)

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4Bit/5Bit Encoding

4B/5B encoding is sometimes called 'Block coding'. Each 4bit 'nibble' of received data has an extra 5th bit added. If input
data is dealt with in 4-bit nibbles there are 24 = 16 different bit
patterns. With 5-bit 'packets' there are 25 = 32 different bit
patterns. This enables clock synchronizations required for
reliable data transfer.
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Fast Ethernet
100BASE-FX

100BASE-TX
Two separate
transmit-receive paths
Full-duplex or halfduplex

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Could be used for backbone

applications, connections
between floors and buildings
where copper is less
desirable (inter-building
backbone), and also in high
noise environments.
Never really accepted
because Gigabit Ethernet
came into the picture
First designed for interbuilding backbone
connectivity
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Class I Repeater

Can use between media segments with different

signaling techniques (100BASE-TX to 100BASEFX)
Only 1 Class I Repeater to be used per collision
domain
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Class II Repeater

Used between segment types that use the same

signaling techniques (100BASE-TX to 100BASE-TX)
May only use 2 with maximum cable lengths
Cannot mix 2 different segments (100BASE-TX to
100BASE-FX)
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Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-X)

(1000 Mbps or 1 Gbps)

General infrastructure needs

High-speed cross-connects
Backbone installations
IEEE 802.3z specifies 1Gbps full
duplex over optical fiber
More complex encoding needed
because of the timing
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Gigabit Ethernet
Gave more speed for intra-building backbones
Inter-switch links
Must be interoperable with 10BASE-T and 100BASETX
All 4 pairs of wires used at the same time, full-duplex
Transmission and reception of data happens in both
directions on the same wire at the same time

All versions of Gigabit Ethernet share the same timing,

frame format, and transmission
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1000BASE-X
Uses NRZ line encoding
the determination of whether a bit is a zero or a one is made by
the level of the signal rather than when the signal changes levels.

The NRZ signals are then pulsed into the fiber using either
short-wavelength or long-wavelength light sources

Short wavelength

1000BASE-SX

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Long wavelength

1000BASE-LX

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10 Gigabit (GbE) Ethernet

10 Gbps full duplex over fiber only

(802.3ae)
Frame format is same as all
Ethernet
CMSA/CD no longer a consideration

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10 Gigabit (GbE) Ethernet

Each data bit duration is now 0.1 nanoseconds (1,000
GbE data bits in the same bit time as one data bit in a
10-Mbps Ethernet data stream)
Uses 2 separate encoding steps
10GBASE-LX4 uses
Wide Wavelength Division Multiplex (WWDM) to
multiplex four bit simultaneous bit streams as four
wavelengths of light launched into the fiber at one time.

Further info http://www.spie.org/web/oer/october/oct97/multiplex.html )

No repeater rules defined since half-duplex is not

supported
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Wide Wavelength Division Multiplexing

Wide wavelengths are diffracted into a fiber and then diffracted
out the other end
When the light propagation is reversed, the multiplexer
becomes the demultiplexer.

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Development of fiber based Ethernet

Mostly limited by :
The actual electronics technology itself:
Emitters
Detectors

And:
The manufacturing process itself

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Data Encapsulation Process

To prepare for Lab 7.1.2

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Data Encapsulation Process

Application Layer
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client PC sending
a text document to an FTP server PC

Presentation Layer
Text is coded in ASCII (American Standard
Code for Information Interchange)

Session Layer
Coordinates dialog between the two PCs

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Data Encapsulation Process

Transport Layer
Segments the data stream from upper layers
Builds a virtual circuit between the two PCs
FTP is handled by TCP (Transmission Control Protocol)
at this layer
TCP tracks the conversation using destination and
source port numbers
FTP server ports are 20 for Data and 21 for Control
FTP client port is dynamically set by client PC using
IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) specified
range of 49152 to 65535; each communication session
referenced by a different port

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Data Encapsulation Process

Network Layer
Places TCP segments into IP (Internet
Protocol) packets
Enables end-to-end routing from the source
network, over intermediate networks, to the
destination network
IP identifies TCP as its payload by placing a 6
in its protocol field

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Data Encapsulation Process

Data Link Layer
Prepares IP packet for transmission on its directly
attached network, in this case an Ethernet LAN
The IP packet is placed in an Ethernet frame which
accesses the network using Ethernets CSMA/CD
protocol
The frame identifies its payload as IPv4 by placing a
value of 0x0800 in its type field
As the MAC sublayer transfers each individual octet of
the frame to the Physical Layer, it reorders all but the
FCS for encoding least-significant bit first
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Data Encapsulation Process

Physical Layer
Encodes the Ethernet frame onto the physical medium
Ethernet utilizes Manchester encoding scheme
Binary value is determined by the direction of the edge
transition in the middle of the timing window
Ones are represented by a rise in voltage (copper
medium) or power level (fiber medium)
Zeroes are represented by a drop in voltage or power
level

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Data Encapsulation Process

Data Link Layer / Physical Layer
Framing and encoding is changed at each
router hop as appropriate to the Layer 2 / Layer
1 protocols in use by the next network along
the path to the destination

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Ethernet Frame
Preamble (7 bytes)
Establish and maintain clock synchronization; although
faster versions are synchronous, Ethernet is
asynchronous
Avoid baseline wander
Hexadecimal 55 55 55 55 55 55 55
Binary 0101 0101 0101 0101

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Ethernet Frame
Start of Frame Delimiter (1 byte)
Hexadecimal D5
Binary 1101 0101
When reordered for Physical Layer encoding, it reads
1010 1011
The two consecutive ones mark the boundary between
the Preamble and the frames Destination Address

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Ethernet Frame
Destination Address (6 bytes)
MAC (Media Access Control) address of destination computer
The destination exists on the same LAN as the source computer
It may belong to the LANs router if the packets destination is on
another network
48 bits in length, written as 12 hexadecimal digits
First 6 hexadecimal digits represent the OUI (Organizational
Unique Identifier) for the equipment manufacturer; the IEEE
administers OUI assignments
Last 6 hexadecimal digits indicate the serial number assigned by
the manufacturer

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Ethernet Frame
Source Address (6 bytes)
MAC (Media Access Control) address of source computer
The source exists on the same LAN as the destination computer
It may belongs to the LANs router if the packets source is on
another network
48 bits in length, written as 12 hexadecimal digits
First 6 hexadecimal digits represent the OUI (Organizational
Unique Identifier) for the equipment manufacturer; the IEEE
administers OUI assignments
Last 6 hexadecimal digits indicate the serial number assigned by
the equipment manufacturer

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Ethernet Frame
Length/Type (2 bytes)
Early IEEE 802.3 versions of Ethernet used this field to indicate
the number of bytes in the data field
Later IEEE 802.3 versions of Ethernet allow this field to indicate
either the length of the data field or the Layer 3 protocol type being
transported
This allows compatibility between IEEE 802.3 and Ethernet
version 2 developed by DIX (DEC, Intel, Xerox)
A hexadecimal value < 0600 (decimal 1536) indicates length,
while >= 0600 indicates an Ethernet II type code
A hexadecimal value of 0800 indicates the frame is carrying an
IPv4 packet

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Ethernet Frame
Data / Padding (46 to 1500 bytes)
The Network Layer packet
Less than 46 bytes will result in an Ethernet runt which could
lead to an undetected collision
Greater than 1500 bytes will result in an Ethernet giant which
exceeds maximum frame length
For frames with a length/type < 0x0600, this field includes the
802.2 LLC (Logical Link Control) sublayer header to indicate the
packets Layer 3 protocol

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Ethernet Frame
Frame Check Sequence (4 bytes)
Used to ensure frames received without errors
Consists of a CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) ran against the
Destination Address, Source Address, Length/Type and Data
fields
Calculated by the source, value attached to frame
Calculated by the recipient and compared to sources calculation
(= good / != bad)

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Lab 7.1.2 Decoding an Ethernet Waveform

Locate Start of Frame Delimiter (SFD)
Immediately following the Preamble, there should be a
binary sequence of 1010 1011
This sequence is the SFD
The Destination Address follows immediately after the
11

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Lab 7.1.2 Decoding an Ethernet Waveform

Group binary values into octets starting with SFD
Place a marker around each binary octet working
backward and forward from the SFD
Grouping each octet simplifies the next step in which
you reorder the octet binaries from their Layer 1 leastsignificant bit first orderings into their Layer 2 mostsignificant bit first orderings

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Lab 7.1.2 Decoding an Ethernet Waveform

Reorder octets into Layer 2 sequence

Write down the reverse bit order of each octet
This new ordering provides the actual Layer 2
frame

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Lab 7.1.2 Decoding an Ethernet Waveform

Convert octets into hexadecimal digits

Each octet is represented by two hexadecimal
digits
For example, the Preambles Layer 2 binary
pattern of 0101 0101 is represented by the
hex value 55

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Lab 7.1.2 Decoding an Ethernet Waveform

Use hex values to identify destination and source
Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI), length/type,
and initial portion of IP header
For the public OUI listing, reference
http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/oui/oui.txt
For the EtherTypes listing, reference the RFC Index at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc-index.html
Enter a search for Assigned Numbers
Locate the latest version of document
Search the document for EtherTypes

For the IP header format, reference RFC 791 page 10

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Module 7
Ethernet
Technologies
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