SETHER implements an STEbus-to-ETHERNET interface. The board allows systems designers to link cost-effective STEbus-based control and monitoring systems into high performance networks capable of communicating with virtually any computer system on the market - an important issue as companies integrate ETHERNET-based office communication networks with manufacturing processes and plant. Both thick-wire ETHERNET IEEE802.3 10BASE5 and thin-wire ETHERNET (Cheapernet) IEEE802.3 10BASE2 LAN standards are supported, offering advanced communications capabilities at data rates to 10 Mbits/sec. With ETHERNET, each segment of cable supports up to 100 nodes and can be 500 metres in length.

With thin-wire ETHERNET (Cheapernet), each segment of low-cost coaxial cable supports 30 nodes and can be 185 metres in length. Use of the DP839X chipset in conjunction with careful consideration of de-facto standards set in the PCbus world, provides the user with access to a host of the most powerful network support software including drivers for NOVELL NetWare, DECnet-DOS, SUN NFS, and NDIS compliant networks, in addition to NetBIOS/OSI and TCP/IP.

Three chips implement the ETHERNET interface: the 8390CN network controller and the 8391A serial network interface, with the 8392AN coaxial transceiver interface chip providing compatibility with thin-wire Cheapernet applications. The board is designed to provide optimum performance in the factory automation environment, and employs a 32Kbyte dual-port RAM buffer in preference to slower DMA techniques. The chipset also has an intrinsically simple buffer management scheme making for fast re-transmission when a collision or error is detected, and significantly reducing the software overhead for implementing systems.

A boot-ROM (link-selectable for 16/32/64Kbytes) provides the STEbus system with the means to initialise over the network, and cross-network boot. SETHER can also communicate any of STEbus' seven interrupts (jumper links select any of the ATNRQ lines) over the network. Two on-board LEDs provide indication of network traffic to and from the ETHERNET controller devices for system development and maintenance tasks.

Note: For VETHER, VMEbus ETHERNET interface, see VMEbus Hardware section; for MOD303, SCIM Module ETHERNET interface, see SCIM Local Expansion Bus section.

Interface:

STEbus slave interface

Power consumption:

Typ 1A @5V

Ordering Information:

Features:

• Thick-wire/thin-wire ETHERNET interface
• 32Kb dual-port RAM buffer
• ROM socket for cross-network boot
• Interrupt channel via DP8390CN
• network controller
• Diagnostic LEDs
• Full network software support