Unmanaged Switch User Manual
Page 9 of 13
Last Revised: 11-Jul-06
Amphenol
– 948, Promenade de l‘Arve – B.P. 29 – 74311 THYEZ Cedex – France - +33(0)4.50.89.28.00 – www.rjswitch.com
Section 6
Switching Features
Switching
Features
Here’s a brief explanation of some of the features found in these switches documented by
this manual.
10BaseT and 100BaseTx Auto-detection
Standard Ethernet (10BaseT) has a maximum speed of 10 Mbps in half duplex mode. Fast
Ethernet (100BaseTx) has a maximum speed of 200 Mbps in full duplex mode. The RJ45
ports on these switches automatically select the appropriate speed.
100BaseFX (multimode and singlemode) fiber optic port
The fiber optic port found on some models is classified as 100BaseFX and supports 100
Mbps operation only. Both multimode and singlemode models are available. Multimode
allows for multiple wavelengths over a cable with a core diameter of typically 50 or 62.5
microns. The maximum distance for multimode is 2 km. Singlemode uses a single
wavelength and cable core diameter of around 10 microns which allows for a maximum
distance of 15 km, 40 km or more (contact Amphenol for longer distances).
3.2 Gbps combined bandwidth
With full duplex and 100BaseTX or 100BaseFX communications, each port can provide a
full 200 Mbps of data throughput.
1K MAC addresses with automatic learning, aging and migration
Each Ethernet device inserts its unique “MAC” address into each message it sends out. The
port on the switch used for a given MAC address is automatically learned when a frame is
received from that address. Once an address is learned, the switch will route messages to
only the appropriate port, instead of broadcasting messages out all ports like a hub. A time
stamp is also placed in memory when a new address is learned. This time stamp is used
with the aging feature, which will remove unused MAC addresses from the table after 300
seconds. If a device moves, the associated port on the switch will be changed (migrated) as
needed. Up to 1,024 MAC addresses can be stored and monitored at any time.
Auto-crossover (auto-mdi/mdi-x)
The RJ45 ports will automatically detect the cable type (straight-thru vs. cross-wired) and
re-configure themselves accordingly.
Auto-polarity
The RJ45 ports (except port 9) will automatically correct for reversed polarity on the TD
and RD pair.
Auto-sensing or auto-negotiating speed
The RJ45 ports of these switches will auto-negotiate with the connected device to
determine the optimal speed (10 Mbps vs. 100 Mbps).
Automatic power saving
If there is no cable on a port, most of the circuitry for that port is disabled to save power.
Back pressure for half-duplex
The Amphenol Industrial Ethernet Switch will apply “back pressure” when necessary with
half-duplex operation. This “back pressure” will reduce congestion on busy networks.
Buffering
SRAM is used for buffering the messages. The 5ES switches have ½ Mbits (64 Kbytes)
while the 9ES switches have 1 Mbits (128 Kbytes). The buffer size is automatically
allocated for each port as necessary.
electronic components distributor