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ASIX ELECTRONICS CORPORATION
13
AX88658AB 8-Port 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet Switch
CONFIDENTIAL
3.0 Functional Description
3.1 Introduction
In general, the AX88658A device is a highly integrated Layer 2 switch. It supports eight 10/100/1000 ports with on-chip
MACs. It also supports integrated switching logic, packet queuing memory and packet storage memory. The AX88658A
is capable of routing-and-forwarding packets at wire speed on all ports regardless of packet size.
It is a low cost solution for eight ports Gigabit Ethernet backbone switch design. No CPU interface is required; After
power on reset, AX88658A provide an auto load configuration setting function through a 2 wire serial EEPROM
interface to access external EEPROM device, and AX88658A can easily be configured to support trunking, QoS, IEEE
802.3x flow control threshold setting, broadcast storm control ...etc functions. An overview of AX88658A’s major
functional blocks is shown in Fig-1.
3.2 Packet Filtering and Forwarding Process
The switch use simple store-and-forward algorithm as packet switching method. After receives incoming packets, the
packets will be stored to the embedded memory first. The AX88658A searches in the Address-Lookup Table with DA of
the packet. The packet will be forward to its destination port, if this packet’s DA hits; otherwise this packet will be
broadcasted. Of course, only good packets will be forward.
3.3 MAC Address Routing,
Learning and Aging Process
The switch supports 4K MAC entries for switching. Two-way dynamic address learning is performed by each good
unicast packet is completely received. And linear/XOR hash algorithm of the static address learning is achieved by
EEPROM configuration. On the other hand, the routing process is performed whenever the packet’s DA is captured. If
the DA can not get a hit result, the packet is going to broadcast.
Only the learned address entries are scheduled in the aging machine. If one station does not transmit any packet for a
period of time, the belonging MAC address will be kicked out from the address table. The aging out time can be program
automatically through the EEPROM configuration. (Default value is 300 seconds)
3.4 Full Duplex 802.3x Flow Control
In full duplex mode, AX88658A supports the standard flow control mechanism defined in IEEE 802.3x standard. It
enables the stopping of remote node transmissions via a PAUSE frame information interaction. When space of the packet
buffer is less than the initialization setting threshold value, AX88658A will send out a PAUSE-ON packet with pause
time equal to “xFFF” to stop the remote node transmission. And then AX88658A will send out a PAUSE-OFF packet
with pause time equal to zero to inform the remote node to retransmit packet if has enough space to receive packets.
3.5 Half Duplex Back Pressure Control
In half duplex mode, AX88658A provide a backpressure control mechanism to avoid dropping packets during network
conjection situation. When space of the packet buffer is less than the initialization setting threshold value, AX88658A
will send a JAM pattern in the input port when it senses an incoming packet, thus force a collision to make the remote
node transmission back off and will effectively avoid dropping packets. And then AX88658A will not send out a JAM
packet any more if has enough space to receive one packet.
3.6 MII Polling
The AX88658A supports PHY management through the serial MDIO/MDC interface. That is, the AX88658A access
related register of PHYs via MDIO/MDC interface after power on reset. The AX88658A will periodically and
continuously poll and update the link status and link partner’s ability which include speed, duplex mode, and 802.3x flow
control capable status of the connected PHY devices through MDIO/MDC serial interface.
3.7 Port-Based QoS: Port-Pair