Hardware Overview

The SUNW,hme device provides 10BASE-TX or 100BASE-T networking interfaces using the Fast Ethernet Parallel Port SCSI (FEPS) ASIC and an internal transceiver. The driver automatically sets the link speed to 10 or 100 Mbps and conforms to the 100BASE-T IEEE 802.3u Ethernet standard. The FEPS (SBus based) or PFEX (PCI-bus based) ASIC provides the SBus or PCI interface and Media Access Control (MAC) functions. The internal transceiver, which connects to an RJ-45 connector on all of the above hardware devices, provides the physical layer functions.

In addition to the RJ-45 connector, a Media Independent Interface (MII) connector, which is an Ultra DB 40 connector, is also provided on Sun systems. The MII connects to an external transceiver that may use any physical media, such as copper or fiber as specified in the 100BASE-TX standard. When an external transceiver is connected to the MII, the driver selects the external transceiver and disables the internal transceiver. The external transceiver may also support the 100BASE-T4 standard, which allows the link to operate in 100 Mbps speed using four pairs of category 3 or better cable.