64
Am79C972
frames which have a length field of 46 bytes or greater
will be passed to the host unmodified.
Figure 34 shows the byte/bit ordering of the received
length field for an IEEE 802.3-compatible frame format.
Figure 34.
IEEE 802.3 Frame And Length Field Transmission Order
Since any valid Ethernet Type field value will always be
greater than a normal IEEE 802.3 Length field (
≥
46),
the Am79C972 controller will not attempt to strip valid
Ethernet frames.
Note that for some network protocols,
the value passed in the Ethernet Type and/or IEEE
802.3 Length field is not compliant with either standard
and may cause problems if pad stripping is enabled
.
Receive FCS Checking
Reception and checking of the received FCS is per-
formed automatically by the Am79C972 controller.
Note that if the Automatic Pad Stripping feature is en-
abled, the FCS for padded frames will be verified
against the value computed for the incoming bit stream
including pad characters, but the FCS value for a pad-
ded frame will not be passed to the host. If an FCS
error is detected in any frame, the error will be reported
in the CRC bit in RMD1.
Receive Exception Conditions
Exception conditions for frame reception fall into two
distinct categories, i.e., those conditions which are the
result of normal network operation, and those which
occur due to abnormal network and/or host related
events.
Normal events which may occur and which are handled
autonomously by the Am79C972 controller are basi-
cally collisions within the slot time and automatic runt
packet rejection. The Am79C972 controller will ensure
that collisions that occur within 512 bit times from the
start of reception (excluding preamble) will be automat-
ically deleted from the receive FIFO with no host inter-
vention. The receive FIFO will delete any frame that is
composed of fewer than 64 bytes provided that the
Runt Packet Accept (RPA bit in CSR124) feature has
not been enabled and the network interface is operat-
ing in half-duplex mode, or the full-duplex Runt Packet
Accept Disable bit (FDRPAD, BCR9, bit 2) is set. This
criterion will be met regardless of whether the receive
frame was the first (or only) frame in the FIFO or if the
receive frame was queued behind a previously re-
ceived message.
Abnormal network conditions include:
FCS errors
Late collision
Host related receive exception conditions include
MISS, BUFF, and OFLO. These are described in the
section,
Buffer Management Unit
.
Loopback Operation
Loopback is a mode of operation intended for system
diagnostics. In this mode, the transmitter and receiver
Preamble
1010....1010
SFD
10101011
Destination
Address
Source
Address
Length
LLC
Data
Pad
FCS
4
Bytes
46
—
1500
Bytes
2
Bytes
6
Bytes
6
Bytes
8
Bits
56
Bits
Start of Frame
at Time = 0
Increasing Time
Bit
0
Bit
7
Bit
0
Bit
7
Most
Significant
Byte
Least
Significant
Byte
1
—
1500
Bytes
45
—
0
Bytes
21485C-37