Intel I350 Specifications

PRODUCT BRIEF
Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I350

Network Connectivity

Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter I350

Dual- and Quad-port Gigabit Ethernet server adapters designed with performance
enhancing features and new power management technologies

Key Features

• Halogen-free dual- or quad-port Gigabit Ethernet adapters with copper or fiber
interface options

• Innovative power management features including Energy Efficient Ethernet
(EEE) and DMA Coalescing for increased efficiency and reduced power
consumption

• Flexible I/O virtualization for port partitioning and quality of service (QoS) of up
to 32 virtual ports

• Scalable iSCSI performance delivering cost-effective SAN connectivity

• High-performing bridgeless design supporting PCI Express* Gen 2.1 5GT/s

• Reliable and proven Gigabit Ethernet technology from Intel Corporation

Overview

The new Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter
I350 family builds on Intel’s history of
excellence in Ethernet products. Intel
continues its market leadership with this
new generation of PCIe* GbE network
adapters. Built with the bridgeless Intel®
Ethernet Controller I350, these adapters
represent the next step in the Gigabit
Ethernet (GbE) networking evolution
for the enterprise and data center by
introducing new levels of performance
through industry-leading enhancements
for both virtualized and iSCSI Unied
Networking environments. This new
family of adapters also includes new
power management technologies such as
Energy Efcient Ethernet (EEE) and DMA
Coalescing (DMAC).

Flexible I/O Virtualization

The Intel® Ethernet Server Adapter
I350 family includes Intel® Virtualization
Technology for connectivity (Intel® VT-c)
to deliver I/O virtualization and Quality
of Service (QoS) features designed
directly into the controller on the
adapter. I/O virtualization advances
network connectivity models used in
today’s servers to more efcient models

by providing Flexible Port Partitioning
(FPP), multiple Rx/Tx queues, and on­controller QoS functionality that can be
used in both virtual and non-virtual server
deployments.

By taking advantage of the PCI-SIG
SR-IOV specication, Intel® Ethernet
products enable Flexible Port Partitioning
(FPP). With FPP, virtual controllers can
be used by the Linux* host directly and/
or assigned to virtual machines. With
this port partitioning, administrators can
create up to eight dedicated connections
on a single Ethernet port for use in bare­metal and virtualized server deployments.

In a bare-metal Linux server, host
processes can be assigned to dedicated
network resources to provide trafc
isolation and balanced bandwidth
allocation.

In a virtualized environment, a VM can be
assigned to a virtual controller to reduce
the CPU overhead seen when using
a software-based network bridge by
ofoading network trafc management to
the controller.

Energy Efficient Ethernet reduces the controller

Source : Intel Labs

power to approximately 50% of its normal
operating level.

High

Power

Low

As shown by the red line, components have less time
between DMA calls to reach and stay in lower power

High

Power

Low

With more time between DMA calls, components can
reach lower power states and remain in them longer.

2

Scalable iSCSI Performance

An Intel Ethernet Server Adapter
I350 with native iSCSI initiators built
into Microsoft* Windows*, Linux*, and
VMware* ESX platforms provides a
simple, dependable, cost-effective
way to connect to iSCSI SANs. These
native initiators are broadly tested
using multiple generations of operating
systems, storage systems, and OS
tools to help ensure reliability and
ease of use. Standardizing on Intel®
Ethernet Adapters for iSCSI enables
administrators to use a single initiator,
TCP/IP stack, and a common set of
management tools and IT policies.
In addition, Intel® Ethernet Server
Adapters include a number of hardware
features designed to accelerate iSCSI
trafc and enhance data processing.
For example, TCP segmentation ofoad
and checksum ofoad capabilities
help reduce processor usage, increase
throughput, and deliver exceptional
iSCSI performance. Finally, using native
OS initiators, an Intel Ethernet Server
Adapter I350 supports the CRC-32 digest
instruction set included with Intel® Xeon®
processor products, which improves
transmission reliability and delivers an
enterprise-class iSCSI solution.

Power Management Technologies

Today, companies everywhere are
looking for ways to decrease energy
consumption across the enterprise
to reduce costs and environmental
impact, while at the same time
solving increasingly important power
density challenges. That’s why Intel
has introduced new, advanced Power
Management Technologies (PMTs)
with the Intel Ethernet Server Adapter
I350 family that enable enterprises to
congure power options on the adapter
and more effectively manage their power
consumption.

Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE)

The Intel Ethernet Server Adapter I350
family supports the IEEE802.3az Energy
Efcient Ethernet (EEE) standard so that,
during periods of low network activity,
EEE reduces the power consumption of
an Ethernet connection by negotiating
with a compliant EEE switch port to
transition to a low power idle (LPI)
state. This reduces the controller power
to approximately 50% of its normal
operating power, saving power on the
network port and the switch port. As

soon as increased network trafc is
detected, the controller and the switch
quickly come back to full power to handle
the increased network trafc. EEE is
supported for both 1000BASE-T and
100BASE-TX.

DMA Coalescing

Another power management technology
that can reduce power on the server
platform is DMA Coalescing (DMAC).
Typically, when a packet arrives at a
server, DMA calls are made to transfer
the packet within the server. These calls
wake up the processor, memory and
other system components from a lower
power state in order to perform the tasks
required to handle the incoming packet.

Based on the congurable DMAC
settings, incoming packets are buffered
momentarily before any DMA calls are
made. This enables the controller to
intelligently identify opportunities to
batch multiple packets together so that
when components are wakened from
lower power states they can efciently
handle the batched packets at the same
time. This enables platform components
to remain in lower power states longer,
which can dramatically reduce platform
energy consumption. DMAC synchronizes
DMA calls across all controller ports to
ensure maximum power savings.

Software Tools and Management

Intel® Advanced Network Services (Intel®
ANS) include new teaming technologies
and techniques such as Virtual Machine
Load-Balancing (VMLB) for Hyper-V
environments. Today, Intel ANS includes
a variety of teaming congurations for
up to eight adapters, support for mixed
vendors server adapters teaming and
includes support for 802.1q VLANs,
making Intel ANS one of the most capable
and comprehensive tools for supporting
server adapter teaming.

Additionally, Intel® PROSet for Windows*
Device Manager and PROset CL extends
driver functionality to provide additional
reliability and Quality of Service features
and conguration.

General Features

Features Benefits

Intel® Eth ernet Controll er I350
with
PCI Ex press* V2.1 (5 GT/s) Support

Haloge n Free1 (Coppe r) • Lead ership in an env ironmentally f riendly ecos ystem

Low-Pro le (Dual and Qu ad Port Copp er; Dual-Po rt Fiber) and
Standard height (Qu ad-Port Fi ber)

• Ind ustry-leading smallest non-bridged PCIe G en2 quad-por t 1 GbE controller

• Ena bles customers to take fu ll advantage of 1 Gb E by providing ma ximum bi-directional th roughput per p ort on a single
quad- port adapter

• Ena bles higher ba ndwidth and through put from standard and l ow-prole PCIe slots an d servers

Ethernet Features

Features Benefits

IEEE* 802.3 auto- negotiation • Auto matic link configuration for sp eed, duplex , flow control

1Gb/s Ethernet IEEE 802.3, 802.3u , 802.3ab PHY specic ations
Compliant

Integrate d PHY for 10/100/1000 Mb/s for mu ltispeed, fu ll, and
half-du plex

IEEE 802.3x and 802.3z compliant ow control suppo rt with
software-controllable R x thresholds a nd Tx pause f rames

Automat ic cross-over detecti on function (MDI/MDI-X ) • The PHY automatic ally detects which ap plication is be ing used and configures itsel f accordingly

IEEE 1588 protocol and 802.1AS implement ation • Tim e-stampin g and synchronization of time s ensitive applicati ons

• Robust ope ration over installed b ase of Category-5 twisted-pair cab ling

• Sma ller footprint a nd lower power dis sipation compared to multiple discreet MAC an d PHY

• Local control of netwo rk congestio n levels

• Fra me loss reduce d from receive over runs

• Dis tribute common time to m edia devices

Power Management and Efciency

Features Benefits

<1W S0-Max (state) 1000BA SE-T Acti ve 90oC (mode)
<400mW S0 -Typ (state) 100BASE-T Act ive (mode)

IEEE802.3az - Ene rgy Efcient Ethernet (E EE) • Powe r consumption of the PHY i s reduced by approximately 50% link transitions to low power I dle (LPI) state as dened in

DMA Coa lescing • Reduces plat form power consumpti on by coalescing, aligning, and synchroni zing DMA

Smar t Power Down (SPD) at S 0 no link / Sx no link • PHY powe rs down circuit s and clocks that are not re quired for detec tion of link act ivity

Active State Power Ma nagement (ASP M) Suppor t • Optionali ty Complian ce bit to help determ ine whether to en able ASPM or wh ether to run ASP M compliance te sts to suppor t

LAN disable f unction • Option to dis able the LAN Port an d/or PCIe Fun ction. Disabling just th e PCIe function but ke eping the LAN port t hat resides

Full wake u p support

• Advanced Power Management (APM) S upport (for merly Wake
on LAN )

• Advanced Congur ation and Power I nterface (ACPI ) specicati on
v2.0c

• Magi c Packet* wake-u p enable with un ique MAC address

ACPI register set and power d own functionalit y supporting D0 and
D3 states

MAC Power M anagement cont rols • Powe r management controls in t he MAC the PHY ca n be entered into a low-power state

Low Power Link Up - Li nk Speed Control • Ena bles a link to come u p at the lowest pos sible speed in c ases where power is more im portant tha n performance

Power Manageme nt Protocol Ofoad (P roxying) • Avoid s purious wake up e vents and reduce system p ower consumption when the device is in D3 low power st ate and system

Latenc y Tolerance Repor ting (LTR) • Repo rts servi ce latency requirements for memory rea ds and writes to the Root Complex for system p ower management

• Controller is designed for low power co nsumption

the IEEE802.3az (EEE) stand ard

• Ena bles synchro nizing port activ ity and power ma nagement of memory, CPU and RC inte rnal circuitry

entry to L0 s

on it fully acti ve (for manageab ility purpo ses and BMC pas s-through traf c).

• APM - Design ed to receive a broad cast or unica st packet with an explicit data pat tern (Magic Pa ck) and asser t a signal to
wake up the system

• ACPI - PCIe power mana gement based wa ke-up that can generate s ystem wake-up events from a numb er of sources

• A powe r-mana ged link speed control lowers link spee d (and power) when highest link perfor mance is not required

is in S3 or S4 low power states

3