RTL8169
2002/03/27
Rev.1.21
3
2. General Description
The Realtek RTL8169 is a highly integrated, high performance PCI Gigabit Ethernet Media Access Controller for use in network
adapters for servers and personal computers. The RTL8169 fully implements the 33/66MHz, 32/64-bit PCI v2.2 bus interface for
host communications with power management and is compliant with the IEEE 802.3 specification for 10/100Mbps Ethernet and
the IEEE 802.3z specification for 1000Mbps Ethernet. The RTL8169 supports the auxiliary power auto-detect function, and will
auto-configure related bits of the PCI power management registers in PCI configuration space.
It also supports the Advanced Configuration Power management Interface (ACPI), PCI power management for modern
operating systems that are capable of Operating System directed Power Management (OSPM) to achieve the most efficient
power management system possible.
In addition to the ACPI feature, the RTL8169 also supports remote wake-up (including AMD Magic Packet, LinkChg, and
Microsoft
®
wake-up frame) in both ACPI and APM environments. The RTL8169 is capable of performing an internal reset
through the application of auxiliary power. When the auxiliary power is applied and the main power remains off, the RTL8169 is
ready and waiting for the Magic Packet or Link Change to wake the system up. Also, the LWAKE pin provides four different
output signals including active high, active low, positive pulse, and negative pulse. The versatility of the RTL8169 LWAKE pin
provides motherboards with Wake-On-LAN (WOL) functionality.
The PCI specification is inherently little-endian. The RTL8169 contains the ability to do little-endian to big-endian swaps. It is
also possible that the RTL8169 can be used as a basis for a RISC CPU platform which expect the data to be in a big-endian
format. This feature allows for maximum flexibility.
PCI Vital Product Data (VPD) is also supported to provide the information that uniquely identifies hardware (i.e., the RTL8169
LAN card). The information may consist of part number, serial number, and other detailed information.
The RTL8169 is fully compliant to Microsoft
®
NDIS5 (IP, TCP, UDP) Checksum and Segmentation Task-offload features, and
supports IEEE802.1Q Virtual bridged Local Area Network (VLAN). All the above RTL8169 features contribute to lowering
CPU utilization, which is a benefit in operation as a server network card. Also, the RTL8169 boosts its PCI performance by
supporting PCI Memory Read Line & Memory Read Multiple when transmitting, and Memory Write and Invalidate when
receiving. To be better qualified as a server card, the RTL8169 also supports the PCI Dual Address Cycle (DAC) command,
when the assigned buffers reside at a physical memory addresses higher than 4 Gigabytes. For QoS, CoS requirements, the
RTL8169 supports hardware high priority queues to reduce software implementation effort and significantly improve
performance.
The RTL8169 keeps network maintenance costs low and eliminates usage barriers. It is the easiest way to upgrade a network
from 10/100Mbps to 1000Mbps. It also supports full-duplex operation, making possible 2000Mbps of bandwidth at no
additional cost. For special applications, the RTL8169 also supports a TBI interface, which can be used to provide a connection
to a Fiber channel, using a Fiber transceiver.
