Two devices were developed for the CFR local-area network, illustrating the almost classical design partition required in high-speed networking. They were never given grander names than the ECL chip and the CMOS chip. The block diagram for an adaptor card is shown in the Figure.
The ECL chip clocks at 100 MHz and contains the minimal amount of logic that needs to clock at the full network clock rate. Its functions are:
standard parts are used to augment the CFR set: the DRAM chip incorporates a dense memory array which could not have been achieved for anywhere near the same cost onboard the CMOS chip and the VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) device used for clock recovery was left off the ECL chip since it was a difficult-to-design analogue component where the risk of having it on the chip was not desired.
PALs are used to `glue' the network interface itself to a particular host system bus. Only the glue logic needs to be redesigned when a new machine is to be fitted with the chipset. PALs have a short design turn-around time since they are field-programmable.
For a larger production run, the PALs would be integrated onto a custom variant of the CMOS chip.