AMERICAN NATIONAL STANDARD ANSI X3.263-1995
1
American National Standard
for Information Technology –
Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) –
Token Ring Twisted Pair Physical Layer
Medium Dependent (TP-PMD)
1 Scope
This standard specifies Twisted Pair Physical Layer Medium Dependent (TP-PMD) requirements for the
Fibre Distributed Data Interface (FDDI).
FDDI provides a high-bandwidth (100 Mbit/s), general-purpose interconnection among computers and
peripheral equipment using fibre optics and twisted pair as the transmission media. FDDI can be config-
ured to support a sustained data transfer rate of at least 80 Mbit/s (10 Mbyte/s). FDDI provides connectiv-
ity for many nodes distributed over distances of several kilometers in extent. Default values for FDDI are
calculated on the basis of 1 000 physical links and a total fibre path length of 200 km (typically corre-
sponding to 500 nodes and 100 km of dual fibre cable).
FDDI consists of:
a) a Physical Layer (PL), which is divided into two sublayers:
1) A Physical Layer, Medium Dependent (PMD) sublayer (ISO/IEC 9314-3), with several alterna-
tive medium choices, which provides the digital baseband point-to-point communication between
nodes in the FDDI network. The PMD provides all services necessary to transport a suitably coded
digital bit stream from node to node. The PMD defines and characterizes the medium drivers and
receivers, medium-dependent code requirements, cables, connectors, power budgets, optical by-
pass provisions, and physical-hardware-related characteristics. It specifies the point of interconnec-
tability for conforming FDDI attachments.
The original PMD standard (ISO/IEC 9314-3), called PMD, defines attachment to multi-mode fibre
up to 2 km, while this TP-PMD defines low-cost attachments to twisted pair up to 100 m. Additional
PMD sublayer standards are being developed for attachment to single mode fibre (SMF-PMD), and
multi-mode fibre up to 500 m (LCF-PMD);
2) A Physical Layer Protocol (PHY) sublayer (ISO/IEC 9314-1), and its enhancement, (PHY-2),
which provides connection between the PMD and the Data Link Layer. PHY establishes clock syn-
chronization with the upstream code-bit data stream and decodes this incoming code-bit stream into
an equivalent symbol stream for use by the higher layers. PHY provides encoding and decoding
between data and control indicator symbols and code bits, medium conditioning and initializing, the
synchronization of incoming and outgoing code-bit clocks, and the delineation of octet boundaries
as required for the transmission of information to or from higher layers. Information to be transmitted
on the medium is encoded by the PHY using a group transmission code;
b) a Data Link Layer (DLL), which is divided into two or more sublayers:
1) An optional Hybrid Ring Control (HRC) (ISO/IEC 9314-5), which provides multiplexing of
packet and circuit switched data on the shared FDDI medium. HRC comprises two internal
components, a Hybrid Multiplexer (H-MUX) and an Isochronous MAC (I-MAC). H-MUX main-
tains a synchronous 125 µs cycle structure and multiplexes the packet and circuit switched
data streams, and I-MAC provides access to circuit switched channels;