IP178A

·  Three-in-one 8 port 10/100 Ethernet switch
  - Built in an 8 port Ethernet switch engine
  - Built in 8 10/100M transceivers
  - Built in SSRAM
·  Support flow control
  - Support IEEE802.3x for full duplex mode operation
  - Support backpressure for half duplex mode operation
·  Built in up to 1K MAC address
·  An 8 port switching fabric
  - Support two-level hashing algorithm to improve address collision
  - Support address aging
  - Store and forward mode
  - Broadcast storm protection
· Full line speed capability of 148800 (14880) packets/sec for 100M (10M)
  - Support 1536 byte data transfer for VLAN traffic
  - Support one MII port
  - Support port base VLAN
  - Support CoS
·  DSP approach transceivers
  - Auto negotiation
  - Fully digital adaptive equalizer and timing recovery module
  - Base line Wander correction
  - 10BaseT, 100BaseT, and 100BaseFX(port6, port7 only) operation
  - Automatic MDI/MDI-X configuration
·  LED status of Link, Receive, Full duplex, and Speed
·  LED with power on diagnostic function
·  Set operation parameters via pins or EEPROMinterface
·  Utilize single clock source (25Mhz)
·  Utilize single power supply (2.5v)
·  0.25um technology
·  Packaged in 208 pin PQFP

IP178A is an 8 port 10/100 Ethernet integrated switch. It consists of an 8-port switch controller and eight Fast Ethernet transceivers. Each of the transceivers complies with the IEEE802.3, IEEE802.3u, and IEEE802.3x specifications. The transceivers in IP178A are designed in DSP approach with advance 0.25um technology; this results in high noise immunity and robust performance.

Two ports of IP178A can be configured as 100BaseFX.

The IP178A operates in store and forward mode. It stores the incoming packet to the internal SSRAM and learns the SA (source address) automatically if the packet is error free. The SA is stored to the internal address table. 

IP178A forwards a packet according to DA and address table. When the segments of destination ports are free, it reads the packet from the internal SSRAM and forwards it to the appropriate ports according to the address table.

The incoming packets with errors are dropped. IP178A supports IEEE802.3x, optional backpressure, Auto MDI/MDI-X, CoS, port base VLAN, one MII port and various LED functions, etc.

These functions can be configured to fit the different requirements by feeding operation parameters via EEPROM interface or pull up/down resistors on specified pins.