
GT-48006A Low Cost Two Port 10/100 Ethernet Bridge/Switch Controller
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6.
MAC Address Learning Process
The GT-48006A has a self-learning mechanism for learning the MAC addresses of attached Ethernet devices in real
time. The GT-48006A searches for the Source Address (SA) of an incoming packet in the Address Table and acts as
follows:
If the SA was not found in the Address Table (a new address), the GT-48006A waits until the end of the packet (non
errored packet) and updates the Address Table.
6.1
Address Recognition
The GT-48006A forwards the incoming packets between bridge ports according to Destination Address (DA) as fol-
lows:
1.
If the DA is a Unicast address and the address was found in the Address Table, the GT-48006A acts as follows:
If the Port Number is equal to the Port on which the packet was received, the packet is discarded.
If the Port Number is different, the packet is forwarded across the bridge.
2.
If the DA is a Unicast address and the address was not found (Unknown), the GT-48006A acts as if it the unknown
packet is a Multicast packet and forwards across the bridge.
3.
If the DA is a Multicast address, the packet is forwarded across the bridge.
6.2
Address Recognition Failure
It is possible that an address recognition cycle will fail when more than 8K addresses have already been entered into
the address table. In the case of an address recognition failure the packet will be treated as unknown and forwarded to
all ports.
Address recognition failures are not fatal and do not need to be handled (i.e. designers need not worry about them.)
6.3
Address Aging
Address aging is supported for topology changes such as an address moving from one port to the other. When this
happens, the GT-48006A detects the change and updates its address table accordingly. Addresses of stations perma-
nently removed from the network are not aged or removed from the address table. If you wish to age out (remove)
these addresses, RESET the GT-48006A. There will be a short interruption of traffic flow, however, this is taken care of
by the higher-layer protocols.
Pin 25 is designated to enable or disable the function. In revision prior to the GT48006A, Pin 25 is used as a Vtol input,
and must be tied HIGH . In the current part, GT-48006A, tying pin 25 HIGH will disable address aging. Therefore,
designs which use versions prior to the GT-48006A must have a stuffing option to tie this pin to ground in order to
enable address aging with the GT48006A. See pin descriptions for more information. Future revisions of the GT-
48006 will be completely backwards compatible with the current revisions
The aging interval will be fixed at 250 seconds based on a 40MHz clock input, or 300 seconds based on a 33MHz clock
input to the GT-48006A. Addresses which have not been seen within the timer period will automatically be removed
from the address table.