Automatic speed switching repeater

A repeater having a plurality of ports for providing connections between media segments coupled thereto, comprising:

• a plurality of backplanes operating at different transmission rates;
• a plurality of repeater logic means, coupled to the plurality of backplanes, for connecting a device to at least one of the backplanes;
• a port switching fabric, coupled to the plurality of repeater logic means, for determining the transmission rate of the device at a port and routing a signal from the device to a repeater logic means according to the transmission rate determination;
• and
• bridging means, coupled to the repeater logic means, for bridging signals between the repeater logic means;
• a media access controller (MAC) for controlling functions including the transmission, loopback and reception of Ethernet frames;
• a direct memory access (DMA) controller for servicing the media access controller and controlling memory;
• and
• a transmit and receive FIFO, coupled to the MAC, for providing latency for the direct memory access controller.

A repeater having a plurality of ports for providing connections between media segments coupled thereto, comprising:

• a plurality of backplanes operating at different transmission rates;
• a plurality of repeater logic means, coupled to the plurality of backplanes, for connecting a device to at least one of the backplanes;
• a port switching fabric, coupled to the plurality of repeater logic means, for determining the transmission rate of the device at a port and routing a signal from the device to a repeater logic means according to the transmission rate determination;
• bridging means, coupled to the repeater logic means, for bridging signals between the repeater logic means;
• and
• a media access controller for controlling functions including the transmission, loopback and reception of Ethernet frames, the media access controller comprising a receiver for receiving a serial bit stream of data through a port, striping off the preamble/SFD header from the data stream, and deserializing the data stream into word quantities.

A repeater having a plurality of ports for providing connections between media segments coupled thereto, comprising:

• ten megabit per second (Mbit/s) repeater logic for connecting ten megabit per second devices to a ten megabit per second backplane;
• one hundred megabit per second (Mbit/s) repeater logic for connecting one hundred megabit per second devices to a one hundred megabit per second backplane;
• and
• a port switching fabric, coupled to the ten megabit per second repeater logic and to the one hundred megabit per second repeater logic, for determining the transmission rate of a signal at a port and routing the signal to one of the repeater logic according to the transmission rate determination;
• and
• a media access controller for controlling functions including the transmission, loopback and reception of Ethernet frames, the media access controller comprising a receiver for receiving a serial bit stream of data through a port striping off the preamble/SFD header from the data stream, and deserializing the data stream into word quantities.