Interface Hardware

The LAN transmission speed is faster than the CPU speeds.

Network Interface Hardware

Since CPU cannot keep up with the network speeds, we need network-interface-card or network-adaptor-card (NIC).
It connects to the physical network.

NIC and Network Hardware

NICs cannot be used for different network hardware.
Example: An NIC made for Ethernet won't work with a Token Ring.

NIC and CPU Processing

Some NICs contain their own micro-processors.
The system CPU sends instructions to NIC to transmit data.

Connection between NIC and Physical Network

1. The NIC contains all the circuitry to connect to the physical medium.
2. The NIC has a wire which connects to additional circuitry which connects to the physical medium.

The Thin Ethernet and 10 Base-T Ethernet are both Ethernet.

Thick Ethernet Wiring

The thick ethernet uses coaxial cable, connected by transceivers which are connected to NICs through AUI cable (also known as drop cable).
Which carries digital and control signals to the transceivers.
Which generate analogue signals.
Which are terminated by the terminators to avoid signal reflections.

Connection Multiplexing

Thin Ethernet Wiring

The transceivers are built directly into the NIC which use BNC-T connectors.