10-Gigabit Ethernet, being standardized in IEEE 802.3ae, offers data speeds up to 10 billion bits per second.Built on the Ethernet technology used in most of today"s local area networks (LANs), it offers similar benefits to those of the preceding Ethernet standard. 10-Gigabit Ethernet is used to interconnect local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), and metropolitan area networks (MANs). 10-Gigabit Ethernet uses the familiar IEEE 802.3 Ethernet media access control (MAC) protocol and its frame format and size. However, it supports full duplex mode but not the half-duplex operation mode and it only functions over optical fiber. So it does not need the carrier-sensing multiple-access with Collision Detection (CSMA/CD) protocol as it is used in other Ethernet standards. The 10 Gigabit Ethernet architecture is displayed as follows:

10 Gigabit Ethernet: The Ethernet Protocol IEEE 802.3ae for LAN, WAN and MAN

The 10 Gigabit specifications, contained in the IEEE 802.3ae supplement to the 802.3 standard, provides support to extend the 802.3 protocol and MAC specification to an operating speed of 10 Gb/s. In addition to the data rate of 10 Gb/s, 10-Gigabit Ethernet is able to accommodate slower date rates such as 9.584640 Gb/s (OC-192), through its "WAN interface sublayer" (WIS) which allows 10 Gigabit Ethernet equipment to be compatible with the Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) STS-192c transmission format.

The 10GBASE-SR and 10GBASE-SW media types are for use over short wavelength (850 nm) multimode fiber (MMF), which covers a fiber distance from 2 meters to 300 meters.. The 10GBASE-SR media type is designed for use over dark fiber, meaning a fiber optic cable that is not in use and that is not connected to any other equipment. The 10GBASE-SW media type is designed to connect to SONET equipment, which is typically used to provide long distance data communications.

The 10GBASE-LR and 10GBASE-LW media types are for use over long wavelength (1310 nm) single-mode fiber (SMF), which covers a fiber distance from 2 meters to 10 kilometers (32,808 feet). The 10GBASE-LR media type is designed for use over dark fiber, while the 10GBASE-LW media type is designed to connect to SONET equipment.

The 10GBASE-ER and 10GBASE-EW media types are for use over extra long wavelength (1550 nm) single-mode fiber (SMF), which covers a fiber distance from 2 meters up to 40 kilometers (131,233 feet). The 10GBASE-ER media types is designed for use over dark fiber, while the 10GBASE-EW media type is designed to connect to SONET equipment.

Finally, there is a 10GBASE-LX4 media type, which uses wave division multiplexing technology to send signals over four wavelengths of light carried over a single pair of fiber optic cables. The 10GBASE-LX4 system is designed to operate at 1310 nm over multi-mode or single-mode dark fiber. The design goal for this media system is from 2 meters up to 300 meters over multimode fiber or from 2 meters up to 10 kilometers over single-mode fiber.

Protocol Structure

10 Gigabit Ethernet uses the same MAC frame as the Ethernet

• Preamble (PRE)- 7 bytes. The PRE is an alternating pattern of ones and zeros that tells receiving stations that a frame is coming, and that provides a means to synchronize the frame-reception portions of receiving physical layers with the incoming bit stream.
• Start-of-frame delimiter (SFD)-1 byte. The SOF is an alternating pattern of ones and zeros, ending with two consecutive 1-bits indicating that the next bit is the left-most bit in the left-most byte of the destination address.
• Destination address (DA)- 6 bytes. The DA field identifies which station(s) should receive the frame..
• Source addresses (SA)- 6 bytes. The SA field identifies the sending station.
• Length/Type- 2 bytes. This field indicates either the number of MAC-client data bytes that are contained in the data field of the frame, or the frame type ID if the frame is assembled using an optional format.
• Data-Is a sequence of n bytes (46=< n =<1500) of any value. (The total frame minimum is 64bytes.)
• Frame check sequence (FCS)- 4 bytes. This sequence contains a 32-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC) value, which is created by the sending MAC and is recalculated by the receiving MAC to check for damaged frames.

Related protocols: IEEE 802.3, 802.3u, 802.3z, 802.2, 802.1, 802.3ae, 802.1D, 802.1Q, 802.1p, 802.1X, FDDI, Token Ring

Sponsor Source: 10 Gigabit Ethernet is defined by IEEE (http://www.ieee.org).

Reference:
http://www.10gea.org/10GEA White Paper_0502.pdf: 10 Gigabit Ethernet Technology White Paper
http://www.intel.com/:10 Gigabit Ethernet Technology