NIC

A NIC (Network Interface Card) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network. It is the electronic circuitry required to communicate using a specific physical layer and data link layer standard such as Ethernet, Fibre Channel, WiFi or Token Ring. It provides a base for a full network protocol stack, allowing communication between small groups of computers that are on the same LAN, or for large networks through routable protocols, such as Internet Protocol. In simple terms it allows computers to communicate over a network either wired or wirelessly. It can also do more advanced features such as interrupt and DMA interfaces to the host processors, support for multiple receive and transmit queues, partitioning into multiple logical interfaces, and on-controller network traffic processing.

NIC’s are inside of the actual computer, although they still act as a network device. They are pre-built into most motherboards, so they come with basically every computer. NIC’s are very cheap and are also almost always pre-installed, they are a constant stable connection. However they can be unsecure, and can become outdated quite quickly.

NIC’s are a necessity to every computer and network, they have evolved over the years and will continue to do so in the future, they will exist as an essential for many years to come.