Highlights
  • Supports PCI Express Specification Revision 2.1
  • Four 10/100/1000M Gigabit Ethernet (POE+) ports
    • Support IEEE 802.3at for PoE+ (Power over Ethernet Plus)
    • Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) design, provides data and up to 65W of power on four ethernet ports
  • Supports jumbo frame to 9K bytes
  • Two Virtual Channels (VC) support
Introduction

The GEPX4-PCIE4XE301 is 4-port 10/100/1000M Ethernet (POE+) to PCI Express x4 Gen 2 Host Card.

GEPX4-PCIE4XE301 is designed with Two key components.

  • 6-Port / 8-Lane PCI Express Packet Switch (Configured as upstream PCIe x4 to four downstream PCIe x1).
  • Four 10/100/1000M Ethernet  to PCI Express x1 Host Controllers.

Utilizing the standard PCI Express Switch, the 6-Port / 8-Lane PCI Express Packet Switch provides the most efficient fan-out solution for integrating four 10/100/1000M Ethernet to PCI Express Single Chip Host controllers into a small board design. Each 10/100/1000M Ethernet to PCI Express Single Chip Host controller takes advantages of 4-lane PCI Express bus in both directions and is fully compliant with PCI Express Base specification r1.1. This solution provides full PCI Express and 10/100/1000M Ethernet functionality and performance.

The 10/100/1000M Ethernet controller combines a triple-speed IEEE 802.3 compliant Media Access Controller (MAC) with a triple-speed Ethernet transceiver, PCI Express bus controller, and embedded memory. With state-of-the-art DSP technology and mixed-mode signal technology, it offers high-speed transmission over CAT 5 UTP cable or CAT 3 UTP (10Mbps only) cable. Functions such as Crossover Detection and Auto-Correction, polarity correction, adaptive equalization, cross-talk cancellation, echo cancellation, timing recovery, and error correction are implemented to provide robust transmission and reception capability at high speeds.

The 10/100/1000M Ethernet controller supports the PCI Express 1.1 bus interface for host communications with power management, and is compliant with the IEEE 802.3u specification for 10/100Mbps Ethernet and the IEEE 802.3ab specification for 1000Mbps Ethernet.

The 10/100/1000M Ethernet controller is fully compliant with Microsoft NDIS5, NDIS6 (IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP) Checksum and Segmentation Task-offload (Large send and Giant send) features, and supports IEEE 802 IP Layer 2 priority encoding and IEEE 802.1Q Virtual bridged Local Area Network (VLAN). The above features contribute to lowering CPU utilization, especially benefiting performance when in operation on a network server.

Technical Specifications

PCI Express
  • Standards compliant
    • Compliant with PCI Express Base Specification Revision 2.1
    • Compliant with PCI Express CEM Specification Revision 2.0
    • Compliant with PCI-toPCI Bridge Architecture Specification Revision 1.2
    • Compliant with Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI) Specification
    • PCI Power Management Spec r1.2
  • PCI Express Power Management
    • Link power management states: L0, L0s, L1, L2/L3 Ready, and L3
    • Device states: D0 and D3hot
    • Active state power management for L0s and L1 states
  • Port Arbitration Round Robin (RR) and Weighted RR and Time-based Weighted RR
  • Extended Virtual Channel capability
    • Two Virtual Channels (VC) and Eight Traffic Class (TC) support
    • Independent TC/VC mapping for each port
    • Provides VC arbitration selection: Strict Priority, Round Robin (RR) and Programmable Weighted Round-Robin
  • Supports Isochronous Traffic
    • Isochronous traffic class mapped to VC1 only
    • Strict time based credit policing
  • Supports “Cut-through”(Default) as well as “Store and Forward” mode for switching packets
  • Peer-to-peer switching between any two downstream ports
  • Supports up to 512-byte maximum payload size (setting to 256-byte)
  • Enhanced Features
    • 150ns typical latency for packet running through switch without blocking
    • Supports Access Control Service (ACS) for peer-to-peer traffic
    • Supports Address Translation (AT) packet for SR-IOV application
    • Supports OBFF and LTR
Ethernet Feature
  • Integrated 10/100/1000M transceiver
  • Auto-Negotiation with Next Page capability
  • Supports PCI Express 1.1
  • Supports pair swap/polarity/skew correction
  • Crossover Detection & Auto-Correction
  • Wake-on-LAN and remote wake-up support
  • Microsoft NDIS5, NDIS6 Checksum Offload (IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP) and Segmentation Task-offload (Large send v1 and Large send v2) support
  • Supports Full Duplex flow control (IEEE 802.3x)
  • Supports jumbo frame to 9K bytes
  • Fully compliant with IEEE 802.3, IEEE 802.3u, IEEE 802.3ab
  • Supports IEEE 802.1P Layer 2 Priority Encoding
  • Supports IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tagging
  • Supports IEEE 802.3az-2010 (EEE)
  • Embedded OTP memory can replace the external EEPROM
  • Supports power down/link down power saving
  • Built-in switching regulator
  • Supports PCI MSI (Message Signaled Interrupt) and MSI-X
  • Supports quad core Receive-Side Scaling (RSS)
  • Supports Alert Standard Format 2.0 (ASF2.0)
  • Supports Protocol Offload (ARP & NS)
  • Supports Customized LEDs
  • Supports 1-Lane 2.5Gbps PCI Express Bus
  • Supports hardware ECC (Error Correction Code) function
  • Supports hardware CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) function
POE+ Feature
  • Supports IEEE 802.3at Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE)
  • Power Delivery Max. 70W for four Ethernet Ports
  • Operates directly from a 54 V supply
  • Provides PD real-time protection through the following mechanisms: overload, under-load, over-voltage, over-temperature, and short-circuit.
  • Auto mode – allows turning PDs on and off automatically.

Power Input for POE

 Step-Up 12V from the following source (A, B, C)
  • A. From PCIe Slot
    • 25 W Slot (Max. 25W)
    • 75 W Slot (Max. 48W)
  • B. From  IDE Big 4 pin Power Connector or/and SATA Power Connector
    • IDE Power (Max. 60W)
    • SATA Power (Max. 48 W)
  • C. From Mini-Fit Jr. Dual Row 6pin Power Connector (Max. 70 W)

Jumper

(For Rev 1.3 or later)

 Virtual Channel 1
Disable: The unused VC1 queues (buffer) can be reassigned to VC0 and enable each of
the ingress ports to handle more data traffic bursts. This virtual channel resource
relocation feature enhances the performance of the PCIe Switch further.
Enable: Isochronous traffic class mapped to VC1 only
LED Indicators
  • Power LED
    • On: Port Power On (normal operation)
    • 0.4Hz Blink: Power Management event
    • 0.8Hz Blink: Port Over Load / Port Short Circuit / Port failed at Startup
    • 3.3Hz Blink: Vmain_Out of Range or Over Temp
    • Off: Port Off
  • Link Status LED
Number of Ports:
  • Four 10/100/1000M Gigabit Ethernet (POE+) ports
    • 1000 BASE-T Single-Port Magnetics/RJ-45 with POE
Computer Platform
  • Computer with PCI Express slot ( x4, x8, x16)

    • Note:
    For the best performance (5.0 Gbps), GEPX4-PCIE4XE301 should be installed in a PCIe Gen 2 compliant slot in the host computer.  Most computers have PCIe Gen 2 (5.0 Gbps) throughput on x8 or x16 slots.
    A PCIe Gen 1 compliant slot reaches up to 2.5 Gbps throughput.
Operating System Requirements
  • Windows XP/ Vista/ 7/ 8/ 8.1, Server 2003/2008/ 2012
  • Linux kernel 3.x /2.6.x/ 2.4.x, FreeBSD 7.x and 8.0, SCO OpenServer 6/UnixWare 7.1.x ,SCO Unix 5.0.6 /5.0.7
  • Novell Server 5.x and 6.x
  • Mac OS 10.4/10.5/10.6/10.7 on Intel-based Mac computer

IOI Drivers for Windows 7/10, Linux
Drivers only support GEPX4-PCIE4XE301 with SVID:1546 & SDID:8168 S/N: 16BB6M00001 or later

Certifications
  • CE Test: Pass
  • FCC Test : Pass
  • VCCI Test: Pass
  • RCM Test: Pass

      
Physical Dimensions
  • 101mm(H) x 151.5mm(L)
  • NW: 151g
Kit includes
  • GEPX4-PCIE4XE301
  • Driver CD