Module-3- ETHERNET SYSTEMS
IEEE 802.3 – Physical layer - Medium access control – Collisions - Ethernet design rules - Fast and gigbit Ethernet
systems - design considerations - Internet layer protocol - UDP - TCP/IP - ProfiNet - LAN system components –
Structured cabling – Industrial Ethernet – Troubleshooting Ethernet.
IEEE 802.3 – Physical layer
10Base5
There are certain requirements if this cable architecture is used in a network. These include:
• Segments must be less than 500 meters (1640 feet) in length to avoid signal attenuation problems.
• Not more than 100 taps on each segment.
• Taps must be placed at integer multiples of 2.5 meters (8 feet).
• The cable must be terminated with a 50-ohm terminator at each end.
• It must not be bent at a radius exceeding 25.4 cm or 10 inches.
• One end of the cable shield must be earthed.
The physical layout of a 10Base5 Ethernet segment is shown in Figure 15.2.
10Base2
The other type of coax-based Ethernet network is 10Base2, often referred to as ‘thinnet’ or ‘thinwire
Ethernet’. It uses type RG-58 A/U or C/U cable with a 50-ohm characteristic impedance and 5 mm
diameter. The cable is normally connected to the NICs in the nodes by means of a BNC T-piece
connector. Connectivity requirements include:
• It must be terminated at each end with a 50-ohm terminator
• The maximum length of a cable segment is 185 meters (600 feet) and not
200 meters (650 feet)
• Not more than 30 transceivers can be connected to any one segment
• There must be a minimum spacing of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) between nodes
• It may not be used as a link segment between two ‘thicknet’ segments
• The minimum bend radius is 5 cm (2 inches)
• The maximum distance between the medium and the transceiver is 4 inches;
this is taken up by the dimensions of the T connector and the pc board
tracks, which means that no drop cable may
10BaseT
10BaseT uses AWG24 unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable for connection to the node. The physical
topology of the standard is a star, with nodes connected to a hub. The cable can be category 3 (Cat3)
UTP, although that does not support the faster versions of Ethernet.
The node cable (hub to node):
• Has a maximum length of 100 meters (328 feet),
• Consists of four pairs of which only two pairs are used (one for receive and one for transmit) and
• Is connected via RJ-45 plugs.
10BaseF
This standard makes provision for three architectures viz. 10BaseFL, 10BaseFP and 10BaseFB. The latter
two have never gained commercial acceptance and are not currently manufactured by any vendor.
10BaseFL
The fiber link segment standard is basically a 2 km (1.2 miles) upgrade to the existing fiber optic inter
repeater link (FOIRL) standard. The original FOIRL as specified in the 802.3 standard was limited to a 1-
km (0.6-mile) fiber link between two repeaters, with a maximum length of 2.5-km (1.5 miles) if there are
five segments in the link.
Design rules
The following design rules on length of cable segment, node placement and hardware usage should be
strictly observed.
Length of the cable segments
It is important to maintain the overall Ethernet requirements as far as length of the cable is concerned.
Each segment has a particular maximum length allowable. For example, 10Base2 allows 185 m
maximum length. The recommended maximum length is 80% of this figure.
Maximum transceiver cable length
In 10Base5 systems, the maximum length of the transceiver cables is 50 m (164 feet) but it should be
noted that this only applies to specified IEEE 802.3 compliant cables. Other AUI cables using ribbon or
office grade cables can only be used for short distances (less than 12.5 m/41 feet), so check the
manufacturer’s specifications for these.
Node placement rules
Connection of the transceiver media access units (MAU) to the cable causes signal reflections due to their
bridging impedance. Placement of the MAUs must therefore be controlled to ensure that reflections from
them do not significantly add in phase. In 10Base5 systems, the MAUs are spaced at multiples of 2.5 m
(8.2 feet), coinciding with the cable markings. In 10Base2 systems, the minimum MAU spacing is 0.5 m
(1.6 feet).
Maximum transmission path
The maximum transmission path is made of five segments connected by four repeaters. The total number
of segments can be made up of a maximum of three coax segments containing station nodes and two link
segments. The link segments are defined as [pointto- point full-duplex links that connect 2– and only 2–
MAUs (e.g. 10BaseFL)]. This is summarized as the 5–4–3–2 rule.
1. It has gained such widespread acceptance in industry that it is becoming the de facto field bus
technology. An indication of this trend is the inclusion of Ethernet as the levels 1 and 2
infrastructure for odbus/TCP (Schneider), Ethernet/IP (Rockwell Automation and ODVA),
ProfiNet (Profibus) and Foundation Fieldbus HSE.
2. Connectors and cabling
Earlier industrial Ethernet systems such as the first-generation Siemens Simatic Net (Sinec-H1) are based
on the 10Base5 configuration, and thus the connectors involved include the screw-type N connectors and
the D-type connectors. Most modern industrial Ethernet systems are, however, based on a
10BaseT/100BaseTX configuration and thus have to contend with RJ-45 connectors and
(typically) Cat5/Cat5e unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable.
TCP/IP
TCP/IP is the de facto global standard for the Internet (network) and host-to-host (transport) layer
mplementation of internetwork applications because of the popularity of the Internet. The Internet (known
as ARPANet in its early years), was part of a military project commissioned by the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA), later known as the Defense Advanced Research Agency or DARPA. The
communications model used to construct the system is known as the ARPA model.
The ver (version) field is 4 bits long and indicates the version of the IP protocol in use. For IPv4, it is 4.
This is followed by the 4-bit IHL (Internet header length) field that indicates the length of the IP header in
32-bit ‘long words’. This is necessary since the IP header can contain options and therefore does not have
a fixed length.
The 8-bit type of service (ToS) field informs the network about the quality of service required for this
datagram. The ToS field is composed of a 3-bit precedence field (which is often ignored) and an unused
(LSB) bit that must be 0. The remaining 4 bits may only be turned on (set =1) one at a time, and are
allocated as follows:
Bit 3: minimize delay
Bit 4: maximize throughput
Bit 5: maximize reliability
Bit 6: minimize monetary cost
Total length (16 bits) is the length of the entire datagram, measured in bytes. Using this field and the IHL
length, it can be determined where the data starts and ends. This field allows the length of a datagram to
be up to 216 = 65 536 bytes, although such long datagrams are impractical. All hosts must at least be
prepared to accept datagrams of up to 576 octets.
The 16-bit identifier uniquely identifies each datagram sent by a host. It is normally incremented by one
for each successive datagram sent. In the case of fragmentation, it is appended to all fragments of the
same datagram for the sake of reconstructing the datagram at the receiving end. It can be compared to the
‘tracking’ number of an item delivered by registered mail or UPS.
The 3-bit flag field contains 2 flags, used in the fragmentation process, viz. DF and MF. The DF (don’t
fragment) flag is set (=1) by the higher-level protocol (for example, TCP) if IP is NOT allowed to
fragment a datagram. If such a situation occurs, IP will not fragment and forward the datagram, but
simply return an appropriate ICMP error message
to the sending host. If fragmentation does occur, MF=1 will indicate that there are more fragments to
follow, whilst MF=0 indicate that it is the last fragment to be sent. The 13-bit fragment offset field
indicates where in the original datagram a particular fragment belongs, for example, how far the
beginning of the fragment is removed from the end of the header. The first fragment has offset zero. The
fragment offset is measured in units of 8 bytes (64 bits); that is, the transmitted offset is equal to the
actual offset divided by eight.
The TTL (time to live) field ensures that undeliverable datagrams are eventually discarded. Every router
that processes a datagram must decrease the TTL by one and if this field contains the value zero, then the
datagram must be destroyed. Typically, a datagram can be delivered anywhere in the world by traversing
fewer than 15 routers.
The 8-bit protocol field indicates the next (higher) level protocol header present in the data portion of the
IP datagram, in other words the protocol that resides above IP in the protocol stack and which has passed
the datagram down to IP. Typical values are 1 for ICMP, 6 for TCP and 17 for UDP.
IPv4 addressing
The IPv4 address consists of 32 bits, e.g. 1100000001100100011001 0000000001. Since this number is
fine for computers but a little difficult for human beings, it is divided into four octets w, x, y and z. Each
octet is converted to its decimal equivalent. The result of the conversion is written in the format
192.100.100.1. This is known as the ‘dotted decimal’ or ‘dotted quad’ notation. As mentioned earlier, one
part of the IP address is known as the network ID or ‘NetID’ while the rest is known as the ‘HostID’.
