ENC28J60
5.1.1
PREAMBLE/START-OF-FRAME
DELIMITER
5.0
ETHERNET OVERVIEW
Before discussing the use of the ENC28J60 as an
Ethernet interface, it may be helpful to review the
structure of a typical data frame. Users requiring more
information should refer to IEEE Standard 802.3 which
is the basis for the Ethernet protocol.
When transmitting and receiving data with the
ENC28J60, the preamble and start of frame delimiter
bytes will automatically be generated or stripped from
the packets when they are transmitted or received. The
host controller does not need to concern itself with
them. Normally, the host controller will also not need to
concern itself with padding and the CRC which the
ENC28J60 will also be able to automatically generate
when transmitting and verify when receiving. The
padding and CRC fields will, however, be written into
the receive buffer when packets arrive, so they may be
evaluated by the host controller if needed.
5.1
Packet Format
Normal IEEE 802.3 compliant Ethernet frames are
between 64 and 1518 bytes long. They are made up of
five or six different fields: a destination MAC address, a
source MAC address, a type/length field, data payload,
an optional padding field and a Cyclic Redundancy
Check (CRC). Additionally, when transmitted on the
Ethernet medium, a 7-byte preamble field and start-of-
frame delimiter byte are appended to the beginning of
the Ethernet packet. Thus, traffic seen on the twisted
pair cabling will appear as shown in Figure 5-1.
FIGURE 5-1:
ETHERNET PACKET FORMAT
Number
of Bytes
Field
Comments
Filtered out by the Module
7
1
6
Preamble
SFD
Start-of-Frame Delimiter
(filtered out by the module)
Destination Address,
such as Multicast, Broadcast or Unicast
DA
SA
Source Address
6
2
Type/Length
Type of Packet or the Length of the Packet
Used in the
Calculation
of the FCS
Data
Packet Payload
(with optional padding)
46-1500
Padding
(1)
Frame Check Sequence – CRC
4
FCS
Note 1: The FCS is transmitted starting with bit 31 and ending with bit 0.
© 2006 Microchip Technology Inc.
Preliminary
DS39662B-page 31
MICROCHIP [ MICROCHIP ]
