ddp+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Drew Daniel Perkins) (10/22/87)
I'm endeavoring to build a high speed ethernet interface, and I need to decide which chip set to use. I'm sure lot's of people out there have opinions on which is currently the best. If you've had any experiences with some of the current chips, please comment. I will summarize to tcp-ip if I get any responses. The ships that I can think of off the to of my head are the Intel 82586, AMD LANCE, Seeq, Fujitsu, Western Digital (?) and Nation Semiconductor. The attributes that I am looking for are: 1. High bandwidth. Able to handle full 10Mb speed or atleast VERY close to it, like 9Mb maybe. 2. Low latency. If I tell it to send a packet, it should be transmitted ASAP. 3. Low host software overhead. Host shouldn't have to deal with collisions, etc. 4. Low relative memory bandwidth utilization, i.e. shouldn't make many references to host memory other than actual packet data. 5. Good multicast support. Host shouldn't have to look at every multicast packet if it wants just a few. Drew