PRELIMINARY
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
Supports full-duplex Ethernet operation
n
Software con鏗乬urable
n
Software compatible with all PCnet family
members
n
Software drivers support all popular Network
Operating Systems (NOS)
n
Includes evaluation board, software driver
diskettes, and supporting documentation
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The PCnet-PCI II evaluation kit is a design evaluation
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.
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鈥檚 manual, the
PCnet Family Network Driver Installation Guide,
and
the Networking Products CD-ROM (PID# 21244).
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 con鏗乬uration of the
network adapter card and software driver installation,
and one for EEPROM con鏗乬uration.
No hardware jumpers are required for con鏗乬uration. The
PCI system BIOS automatically con鏗乬ures 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 Con鏗乬uration and Installation utility
program, Aminstall, provides an easy user interface to
view the con鏗乬uration 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 鏗乶d
the installed PCnet-ISA, PCnet-ISA+, PCnet-ISA II,
PCnet-32, PCnet-PCI, PCnet-PCI II, and PCnet-PCI II
devices. With the con鏗乬uration portion of the program, the
utility will 鏗乶d and report to the user, the I/O address, IRQ
channel and DMA channel, assigned to the PCnet-PCI II
device by the system BIOS. After con鏗乬uration, 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
鏗乴es on the user鈥檚 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鈥檚
IEEE physical address from the EEPROM through the
Microwire interface protocol. For more details about the
Publication#
22103
Rev:
A
Amendment/0
Issue Date:
January 1998
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.
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