From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Apr 26 11:33: 2 2001
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	id 9F6C737B422; Thu, 26 Apr 2001 11:32:54 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Is 3COM 3C996-T supported via Alteon Driver?
In-Reply-To: <200104242028.QAA07738@taurus.cs.albany.edu> from "William A. Maniatty" at "Apr 24, 2001 04:24:01 pm"
To: maniatty@cs.albany.edu (William A. Maniatty)
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 11:32:54 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org
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From: wpaul@FreeBSD.ORG (Bill Paul)
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> > Hello All:
> > 
> > I'm in the process of configuring a cluster and noticed that 3COM
> > had recently purchased Alteon and was making a 3C996-T 10/100/1000 BaseT
> > cards.  Can the Alteon Tigon drivers support this card?
> 
> After a bit of poking around, and discussion with 3Com's tech support,
> they have confirmed that this card is NOT Alteon based.  In fact,
> most of the current crop of 10/100/1000 BaseT cards are based on
> broadcom's recent chipset, (I'm not sure which chip, possibly
> the BMC5401 or the BMC5402).  I don't think that there are FreeBSD
> drivers for these cards (due in some part to reasons discussed below).
> 
> Other FreeBSD friendly vendors (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give names
> here) have confirmed that they too are preparing cards with the same
> technology.  I've heard rumors that the chip supplies are currently limited,
> so that card availability might be limited until late May.

The 3c996 uses the Broadcom BCM5700, also known as the Tigon 3. Apparently,
Alteon 'outsourced' the development of the Tigon 3 to Broadcom, and
3Com has some right to it now that they own Alteon's NIC division. The
BCM5400 and 5401 are PHY (transceiver) chips, not MACs. I have been
trying to get Broadcom to give me a copy of the BCM5700 programming
manual, but have been left somewhat out if left field. My last contact
with them was a few weeks ago, when they told me they needed approval
from yet another management droid of some kind, who hasn't responded to
either my phone messages or my e-mail.

The Tigon 3 doesn't look *too* different from the Tigon 2, based on
what I've seen in the Linux driver. (Yes, they wrote a Linux driver,
but not a BSD driver.) One major difference is that the firmware seems
to now reside in the chip itself, which saves you from having to load
it from the driver.

In the meantime, I'm currently working on drivers for the National
Semiconductor DP83820 and Level 1 LXT1001 gigabig MAC chips. The Level 1
part can be found on the D-Link DGE-500SX and a couple of SMC cards.
The NatSemi chip is being used on cards by D-Link (DGE-500T), Asante
and Addtron. Getting the DP83820 manual was easy (it's on National's
web site). Getting the LXT1001 manual took some arm twisting, but Intel
(who now owns Level 1) finally agreed to let D-Link release it to me
without NDA.

Unfortunately, the BSDi/Wind River deal still hasn't quite closed yet,
which is preventing me from ordering hardware. I'm doing as much of the
gruntwork as I can, but I can't do actual testing until I can get some
sample NICs. Everyone will know once I'm done.

-Bill

=============================================================================
-Bill Paul            (925) 691-2800 | Systems Programmer, Master of Unix-Fu
                  wpaul@osd.bsdi.com | BSDi Open Source Solutions
=============================================================================
"I like zees guys. Zey are fonny guys. Just keel one of zem." -- The 3 Amigos
=============================================================================

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