AEI Intelligent Technologies' PCI Express 4 Port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet network interface card (AEI-e1400C) is designed to deliver high performance, and high reliability for demanding applications, as well as legacy Fast Ethernet connectivity. It provides a full-duplex Gigabit Ethernet connection in a x4 PCI Express Form Factor. The AEI-e1400C is compatible with x4, x8, and x16 PCI Express slots.

The AEI-e1400C is a high performance multi-speed quad-port Gigabit Ethernet controller ideally suited for port density applications. The card is capable of operating in either half or full duplex mode. The AEI-e1400C incorporates in-chip RISC processors to greatly enhance performance by providing advanced filtering and traffic classifications as well as support for computation intensive TCP/IP operations.

Additionally, the controller employs a powerful DMA engine to maximize bus throughput while minimizing CPU overhead.

AEI's adapters are the perfect solution for a cost effective, instant performance boost over existing Category 5 UTP copper cabling. It also offers scalability for those contemplating future upgrades to Gigabit technology.

Design Characteristics

Unlike other PCI Express NIC alternatives, the AEI-e1400C incorporates only PCI Express technology throughout its design. Subsequently, no PCI-X to PCI Express protocol conversion is necessary, thus providing enhanced performance over our competition.

It is uniquely designed with integrated magnetics, low profile surface mount resistors and capacitors, high precision oscillator, and other high-end discrete components. The result is a card that is highly reliable, resistant to damage, fault tolerant, and performance that is unparalleled. The AEI-e1400C is fully interoperable with existing Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet hubs, switches and routers.

CPU Offload Functions

Each Ethernet controller chip contains an embedded RISC processor and memory buffer. This provides custom frame processing features, as well as CPU offloading of TCP/IP, UDP, checksum, and Microsoft LSO.

Jumbo Frame

The Gigabit adapter is configurable to support Jumbo Frame (9KB).

Advanced Server Features

AEI's Gigabit adapters utilize the popular Broadcom BCM5715 chipset, which comes with numerous advance server features built into its architecture. Hardware acceleration offloads tasks from the host processor including TCP segmentation, IP fragmentation, and reassembly. CPU task offload functions include TCP, IP, UDP checksum; and Microsoft LSO.

Features

Ten times the throughput of standard Fast Ethernet cards.
Nway auto negotiation / automatic sensing and switching between 10 Mbps / 100 Mbps/ 1000Mbps AND half or full duplex operation.
Easy to install and configure.
Half or Full Duplex operation.
Three speed 10Mbps (10Base-T), 100 Mbps (100Base-Tx), or 1000 Mbps (1000Base-T)
Cross Platform support for a broad range of operating systems and architectures.
DMA Bus Mastering for lower CPU utilization.

Applications

Firewalls and other Internet Security Appliances
Internet Service Providers and Web Hosting Servers.
Proxy, application, file, and print servers.
SOHO to Enterprise network environments.
Storage Area Networks (SAN)
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Network segmentation (for network security purposes)
Gateways and routers.

Specifications

Part Number	AEI-e1400C
Connector	Quad RJ-45(f)
IEEE Standards	IEEE 802.3 (10Base-T Ethernet) IEEE 802.3u (100Base-Tx Ethernet) IEEE 802.3ab (1000Base-T Ethernet) IEEE 802.3ad (Port Aggregation) 802.1Q (VLAN) 802.1x (Flow Control) 802.1p (Layer 2 Priority Encoding QoS) 802.1z Fast EtherChannel (FEC) and Gigabit EtherChannel (GEC) supported.
Trunking & Failover	Compatible with features contained within the Windows and Linux operating systems. 802.3ad
Speeds, Cable & Distance	Ethernet, 10Base-T (Cat 3, 4, 5 UTP) Fast Ethernet, 100Base-Tx (Cat 5 UTP ) Gigabit Ethernet, 1000Base-T (Cat 5, Cat 5e, Cat 6, and DataTwist 600e) Distance up to 100 meters maximum For Gigabit transmissions, recommend use of Belden Cable's DataTwist 600e. Suggested reading for Gigabit cabling: AEI whitepaper 2003-01-21
Duplex	Half or Full Duplex operation capable.
Auto-negotiation / NWay	Auto-negotiation between Full duplex and simplex operations AND between 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1000 Mbps.
CPU Offload	Onboard MIPS RISC processor for: TCP/IP Offload TCP/IP Offload Engine TOE UDP Offload Checksuom Offload Microsoft LSO
Jumbo Frame	Yes, 9KB
PXE	PXE 2.0 Remote Boot
LEDs	1000 and Activity Also, onboard diagnostic LEDs for: Link / Each Port Internal PCIe data link active for each MAC. Internal power good for each MAC. Internal PCIe Lane Good indicators (0-2). Internal PCIe Fault. These onboard indicators provide system administrators easy one-look diagnostic capability.
Bus Type	PCI Express 1.1 compliant
Driver Support	Device Drivers Microsoft Windows Suite Linux Solaris (x86) DOS NDIS2 Novel NetWare SCO OpenServer5 SCO Unixware/OS6 Diagnostic Utilities
Certifications	RoHS Compliant
Environment Specs	Temperature: operating 0C to 50C Humidity: 0 to 90% non-condensing
Slot Type	6.9" (L) x 4.2" (H) x4 connector compatible with PCI Express x8, x16 slots
MTBF*	135 Years
Power Consumption	Operating Voltage: 3.3VDC/5VDC

* According to Telcordia SR-332 Issue 1 Environmental condition – GB (Ground, Fixed, Controlled). Ambient temperature - 25C. Temperature rise of 10C above the system ambient temperature was assumed for the cards components.