WWW.TESTBENCH.IN http://www.testbench.in/introduction_to_ethernet.

html

|HOME |ABOUT |ARTICLES |ACK |FEEDBACK |TOC |LINKS | BLOG | JOBS | Search

TUTORIALS
About the authors:
SystemVerilog Introduction to Ethernet Frames : Part - 1
Verification Bhavani shankar is VLSI
Constructs
engineer at Kacper
This tutorial is divided into two parts. Part-1 will be on Ethernet Frames and Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Interface
Part-2 will be on Simple Ethernet Testplan. Bhavani shankar is an
OOPS For Part-2 , Click master in VLSI-CAD
Randomization from Manipal Centre
Functional Coverage
for Information
1.Ethernet Protocol Layer Science, Manipal.
Assertion
DPI The Ethernet protocol basically implements the bottom two layers of the Open Gopi Krishna He is the
UVM Tutorial Systems Interconnection (OSI) 7-layer model, i.e., the data link and physical sub Author of testbench.in.
VMM Tutorial layers. Following Figure depicts the typical Ethernet protocol stack and the
relationship to the OSI model.
OVM Tutorial
Easy Labs : SV Report a Bug or
Easy Labs : UVM Comment on This section
- Your input is what keeps
Easy Labs : OVM
Testbench.in improving
Easy Labs : VMM with time!
AVM Switch TB
VMM Ethernet sample

Verilog
Verification
Verilog Switch TB
Basic Constructs

OpenVera
Constructs
Switch TB
RVM Switch TB 2.Ethernet Frame Structure
RVM Ethernet sample
The following illustrates the format of an Ethernet frame as defined in the
original IEEE 802.3 standard
Specman E
Interview Questions

Preamble

A sequence of 56 bits having alternating 1 and 0 values that are used for
synchronization. They serve to give components in the network time to detect the
presence of a signal, and read it before the frame data arrives.

1 of 4 1/27/2019 11:31 PM
WWW.TESTBENCH.IN http://www.testbench.in/introduction_to_ethernet.html

Destination MAC Address

The Destination MAC Address field addresses destination stations. This may
addresses single or multiple stations.

Destination Address (6bytes) of all 1 bits refers to all stations on the LAN and is
called a "Broadcast address".

Start Frame Delimiter

Sequence of 8 bits having the bit configuration 10101011 indicates the start of
the frame.

Source MAC Address

The Source MAC Address addresses the station at which it originated. The 802.3
standard permits these address fields to be either 2-bytes or 6-bytes in length.

Length/Type (2bytes)

If the value of this field is less than or equal to 1500, then the Length/Type field
indicates the number of bytes in the subsequent MAC Client Data field. If the
value of this field is greater than or equal to 1536, then the Length/Type field
indicates the nature of the MAC client protocol (protocol type)

MAC Client Data

This field contains the actual data transferred from the source station to the
destination station or stations. The maximum size of this field is 1500 bytes. If the
size of this field is less than 46 bytes, then use of the subsequent "Pad" field is
necessary to bring the frame size up to the minimum length.

Pad

If necessary, extra data bytes are appended in this field to bring the frame length
up to its minimum size. A minimum Ethernet frame size is 64 bytes from
Destination MAC Address(DA) field through the Frame Check Sequence(FCS).

Frame Check Sequence (FCS)

This field contains a 4-byte Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) value used for error
checking.

When a source station assembles a MAC frame, it calculates a CRC checksum on

all the bits in the frame from Destination MAC Address (DA) to the Pad fields (that
is, all fields except the preamble, start frame delimiter, and frame check
sequence).

The source station stores this CRC value in this field and transmits it as part of

2 of 4 1/27/2019 11:31 PM
WWW.TESTBENCH.IN http://www.testbench.in/introduction_to_ethernet.html

the frame. When the frame is received at destination station, it calculates CRC of
received data and compares it with FCS. If it does not match then destination
station assumes an error occurred during transmission and discards the frame.

The original Ethernet standards defined the minimum frame size as 64-bytes and
the maximum as 1518-bytes. These numbers include all bytes from the
Destination MAC Address field through the Frame Check Sequence field. The
Preamble and Start Frame Delimiter fields are not included when quoting the size
of a frame. The IEEE 802.3ac standard released in 1998 extended the maximum
allowable frame size to 1522-bytes to allow a "VLAN tag" to be inserted into the
Ethernet frame format.

Interframe Gap
Ethernet devices must allow a minimum idle period between transmission of
frames known as the interframe gap (IFG) or interpacket gap (IPG). It provides
the time for devices to recover and prepare to receive next frame. The minimum
interframe gap is 96 bit times.

3.Frame Format Extensions

VLAN Tagging
The VLAN protocol permits insertion of an identifier, or "tag", into the Ethernet
frame format to identify the VLAN to which the frame belongs. It allows frames
from stations to be assigned to logical groups. This provides various benefits such
as easing network administration, allowing formation of work groups, enhancing
network security, and providing a means of limiting broadcast domains, The
802.3ac standard defines only the implementation details of the VLAN protocol
those are specific to Ethernet. The 4-byte VLAN tag is inserted into the Ethernet
frame between the Source MAC Address field and the Length/Type field. The first
2-bytes of the VLAN tag consist of the "802.1Q Tag Type" and are always set to a
value of 0x8100. The 0x8100 value is actually a reserved Length/Type field
assignment that indicates the presence of the VLAN tag, and signals that the
traditional Length/Type field can be found at an offset of 4-bytes further into the
frame.

The last 2-bytes of the VLAN tag contain the following information

The first 3-bits are a User Priority Field that may be used to
Assign a priority level to the Ethernet frame.
The next 1-bit is a Canonical Format Indicator (CFI) used in Ethernet frames to
indicate the presence of a Routing Information Field (RIF).

The last 12-bits are the VLAN Identifier (VID) which uniquely identifies the VLAN
to which the Ethernet frame belongs.

JUMBO Frames
JUMBO frames are introduced in order to Increase the maximum size of the MAC
Client Data field, larger frames would provide more efficient use of the network
Bandwidth while reducing the number of frames that have to be processed.

JUMBO frames has the capacity to carry bytes from 64bytes (min size) to
9000bytes (max size)
The 8870 value is actually a reserved Length/Type field assignment that
indicates frame as JUMBO.

PAUSE Frames
Flow control operation known as "PAUSE" frames are included in 10GBE as it
supports the full duplex mode.

3 of 4 1/27/2019 11:31 PM
WWW.TESTBENCH.IN http://www.testbench.in/introduction_to_ethernet.html

The 8808 value is actually a reserved Length/Type field assignment that

indicates frame as PAUSE. Length/Type field is followed by 2 bytes of MAC control
Opcode (00-01) and 2bytes of MAC control Parameter (timer=00-00toFF-FF) with a
unique DA (01-80-c2-00-00-01) in MAC DA field
PAUSE frame considers 64bytes as Minimum size and 1518bytes as Maximum
size for Normal frame and 1522bytes when tagged.
Transmitter Mac should not transmit the frames once it receives Pause frames
from receiver until the time duration specified in the Pause timer
Transmitter Mac should reset/replace the current pause timer with newly
arrived pause time when a Pause frame arrives from receiver before the current
Pause time expires.

copyright © 2007 :: all rights reserved www.testbench.in::Disclaimer

4 of 4 1/27/2019 11:31 PM