National Semiconductor Corp and Cabletron Systems Inc have joined forces to develop an integrated family of Ethernet IEEE 802.3 local area network repeaters: the development is intended to result in the industry’s first VLSI repeater with comprehensive network management and control, and the device is expected to be available late this year to form the basis for a new generation of lower cost, more reliable Ethernet products, supporting the IEEE 802.3 standard for Multi-Port Repeaters and the emerging 10Base-T standard for 10M-bit per second transmission over unshielded twisted pair wiring, as well as enabling distribution of network management intelligence across the entire system; it will also be cascadable to form large repeater configurations, and Cabletron will use this and future NatSemi parts in its Multi-Media Ethernet products.
