Ethernet card: RJ-45 <-> PHY <-> MAC <-> DMA(?) <-> ... <-> software (dsp) (chksum) (middle man between sw and mac) Ethernet: Clock: manages time of sending packets (0s, 1s) Data: normal serial line, like most other serial based things. MDIO/MII/GMII/etc: used for speed neg. (is it 10? 100? 1000?) and other things that are not in data ("metadata")