PRELIMINARY
This document contains information on a product under development at Advanced Micro Devices. The information
is intended to help you evaluate this product. AMD reserves the right to change or discontinue work on this proposed
product without notice.
Publication#
22103
Issue Date:
January 1998
Rev:
A
Amendment/
0
PCnet-PCI II-KT/2
Am79C970A Based Evaluation Kit for PCI Systems
DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS
n
PCI-based Ethernet adapter card with on-board
10BASE-T and 10BASE2 connections
n
Based on the PCnet-PCI II (Am79C970A) single-
chip Ethernet controller for PCI bus
n
Implements a fully functional Ethernet node
using a Peripheral Component Interconnect
(PCI)-based system
n
Ethernet adapter card utilizing a high
performance, low-cost, bus master architecture
(NE2100)
n
n
n
Supports full-duplex Ethernet operation
Software configurable
Software compatible with all PCnet family
members
Software drivers support all popular Network
Operating Systems (NOS)
Includes evaluation board, software driver
diskettes, and supporting documentation
n
n
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The PCnet-PCI II
vehicle for the Am79C970A PCnet-PCI II single-chip
Ethernet controller with an integrated PCI bus inter-
face. The kit includes an evaluation board with the
Am79C970A Ethernet controller and is designed for
10BASE-T (Twisted Pair) or 10BASE2 (Cheapernet)
media.
evaluation kit is a design evaluation
The evaluation board, when installed in an PCI-based
host system, provides a platform for demonstrating the
high performance of the PCnet-PCI II device, the low
manufacturing cost of a PCnet-PCI II based solution,
and the overall ease of design. The platform further al-
lows the user to evaluate network hardware and to de-
velop software for an Ethernet node based on the
PCnet-PCI II device.
In addition to the evaluation board, the kit comes with
software diskettes, a hardware user’s manual, the
PCnet Family Network Driver Installation Guide
the Networking Products CD-ROM (PID# 21244).
, and
The software includes driver object codes for Novell
NetWare ODI DOS and OS/2, Microsoft Windows NT,
Window for Workgroups, LAN Manager, Banyan VINES
Client, IBM LAN Server, SCO UNIX, Artisoft LANtastic/
AI, DEC Pathworks, and Packet Driver. Also included
are two utility programs, one for configuration of the
network adapter card and software driver installation,
and one for EEPROM configuration.
No hardware jumpers are required for configuration. The
PCI system BIOS automatically configures on power up,
the I/O Base Address, interrupt channel, and DMA chan-
nel for the PCnet-PCI II Ethernet adapter card.
In addition, AMD provides a low-level evaluation pro-
gram to establish connections, and send and receive
messages. The evaluation program allows the user to
view and change the contents of the PCnet-PCI II reg-
isters, the memory resident Initialization Block, and the
data buffer Descriptor Rings. The program also allows
the designer to establish loops for hardware probing.
The PCnet Family Configuration and Installation utility
program, Aminstall, provides an easy user interface to
view the configuration of the PCnet-PCI II evaluation
board. The utility program will automatically scan the sys-
tem bus(es), which may include ISA, VL, and PCI to find
the installed PCnet-ISA, PCnet-ISA+, PCnet-ISA II,
PCnet-32, PCnet-PCI, PCnet-PCI II, and PCnet-PCI II
devices. With the configuration portion of the program, the
channel and DMA channel, assigned to the PCnet-PCI II
device by the system BIOS. After configuration, the user
may use the installation portion of the utility to install a se-
lected driver by copying the appropriate driver from the
AMD diskette, and create or modify the CONFIG.SYS,
AUTOEXEC.BAT, and PROTOCOL.INI OR NET.CFG
files on the user’s system.
The PCnet-PCI II evaluation board stores the unique
IEEE physical address in the serial EEPROM. Once
powered up, the Am79C970A device reads the node’s
IEEE physical address from the EEPROM through the
Microwire interface protocol. For more details about the