Definition: TOE

(TCP/IP Offload Engine) A network adapter that performs some or all of the TCP/IP processing on an Ethernet adapter. As Ethernet becomes common at 1 Gbps and beyond, offloading the processing from the CPU to the card allows the CPU to keep up with the high-speed data transmission. Processing for the entire TCP/IP protocol stack may be performed on the TOE or just the data transmission part, leaving the session establishment and error handling to the CPU. See TCP/IP.