Network interface card
Network interface card (NIC) A network interface card (NIC) is a hardware component, typically a circuit board or chip , which is installed on a computer so that it can connect to a network. Modern NICs provide functionality to computers such as support for I/O interrupt , direct memory access ( DMA ) interfaces , data transmission, network traffic engineering and partitioning. A NIC provides a computer with a dedicated, full-time connection to a network by implementing the physical layer circuitry necessary for communicating with a data link layer standard, such as Ethernet or Wi-Fi. Each card represents a device and can prepare, transmit and control the flow of data on the network. The NIC uses the OSI model to send signals at the physical layer, transmit data packets at the network layer and operate as an interface at the TCP/IP layer. The network card operates as a middleman between a computer and a data network. For example, when a user requests a we