
Publication#  
22161
Issue Date:  
October 1998
Rev: 
B
 Amendment/
0
This document contains information on a product under development at Advanced Micro Devices. The information
is intended to help you evaluate this product. AMD reserves the right to change or discontinue work on this proposed
product without notice.
Pioneering the Ubiquitous Home Network: New 
AMD Silicon Solutions for Phone Line Networking
White Paper
The introduction of AMD's first home networking controller will change the way consumers interact
with their personal computers. AMD's new single-chip controller is fully compliant with the Home
Phoneline Networking Alliance's (HomePNA) initial specification for 1 Mbps data transfer over
standard telephone wiring. Utilizing the widely endorsed HomePNA technology and leveraging
significant expertise in enterprise networking allows AMD to produce a highly-integrated device
capable of meeting the growing consumer demand for an inexpensive, easy-to-use technology
allowing for the sharing of computing resources among many different PCs. The PCnet-Home
single-chip controller marries Ethernet with in-home telephone wiring to deliver on the promises of
home networking.
INTRODUCTION
While Local Area Networks (LANs) are a well-accepted
part of the communications environment for busi-
nesses, LANs are not commonly deployed in the home.
This is due to several technical and logistical reasons.
Chief among these is the fact that the widely adopted
and supported enterprise networking technologies re-
quire a technically skilled individual capable of design-
ing and maintaining a complex network architecture.
Enterprise networks also require the use of high-grade
wiring typically not found in most homes. Also, few
home users are willing to master the art of installing
and maintaining an Ethernet repeater, learn even the
basics about network protocols, or drill holes through
their walls to run new network-capable wiring through-
out their home. 
The driving force behind creating new home connectiv-
ity products is the growing number of homes with two
or more PCs. With the increased focus on computers in
education and the boom in Internet connectivity, a large
number of PCs being purchased today are additional
PCs as opposed to replacement units. Today, it is esti-
mated that over 15 million of the 100 million homes in
the United States have two or more PCs, and 60% of
new consumer PC purchases are by families that al-
ready have at least one computer. This number is ex-
pected to double by the year 2000 according to the
research firm Dataquest.
The growth in the number of multiple-PC households
leads to a need for connecting these PCs in order to
maximize the benefits of peripheral components and to
have a convenient method for sharing files and other in-
formation between the various computers within the
home. In a home with multiple PCs, each computer
would ideally have its own printer, scanner or other
required peripheral. With a home network, multiple
users can share these expensive peripherals, regard-
less of their location throughout the home. Without a
network, users who want to print a file, but cannot af-
ford to have a printer attached to every PC in the home,
must physically move the file from one PC to another
via floppy disk. With networked PCs, applications and
files can easily be shared by users, saving time and
money.
An additional primary requirement for a home network
is the ability to provide direct access to the Internet
from every PC within the home. Distributing Internet
access throughout the home becomes increasingly im-
portant as next-generation access technologies such
as cable modems and UADSL services deliver increas-
ing amounts of bandwidth to the side of the home. To-
day, when multiple home users want to access the
Internet via separate PCs, they must each use their
own telephone line and either share a single Internet
account or set-up multiple accounts. Neither of these
two solutions are ideal, and the end result is often mul-
tiple users who must share Internet access in a serial
fashion—one PC at a time. Home networks can deliver
huge savings by enabling shared access to a single In-
ternet connection. With integrated silicon and software
support, a home network can enable one PC to act as
an external gateway, distributing Internet access to
every device on the network simultaneously. 
Multi-player games will also benefit from the
widespread adoption of home networks, enabling gam-
ers to use two PCs located nearly anywhere in the
home to compete against one another. A ubiquitous,
easy-to-install home network will also foster home au-
tomation applications that take advantage of a network
environment, such as environmental control and
security systems (see Figure 1).