GUIDELINES FOR
64-BIT GLOBAL IDENTIFIER (EUI-64)
REGISTRATION AUTHORITY

General

The IEEE defined 64-bit extended unique identifier (EUI-64) is a concatenation of the 24-bit /_or 36-bit_ /company_id value by the IEEE Registration Authority and a _/the/_ extension identifier assigned by the organization with that company_id assignment _/resulting in a 64 bit unique identifier/_. /_The extension identifiers shall be 40 bits for the 24-bit company_id (OUI-24) and 28 bit for the 36 bit company_id (OUI-36)._/

The IEEE administers the assignment of _/OUI-24 or OUI-36 /_ /company_id / values. The assignments of these values are public, so that a user of an EUI-64 value can identify the manufacturer that provided any value[1]
<http://standards.ieee.org/regauth/oui/tutorials/EUI64.html#fn0>. The IEEE/RAC has no control over the assignments of _/the/_ extension identifiers and assumes no liability for assignments of duplicate EUI-64 identifiers assigned by manufacturers.

Application restrictions

Given the minimal probability of consuming all the EUI-64 identifiers, the IEEE/RAC places minimal restrictions on their use within standards. However, if used within the context of an IEEE standard, the documentation shall be reviewed by the IEEE/RAC for correctness and clarity. The IEEE/RAC shall not otherwise restrict the use of EUI-64 identifiers within standards. If the EUI-64 is referenced within non-IEEE standards, there shall not be any reference to IEEE unless approved by the IEEE/RAC.

Distribution restrictions

Given the minimal probability of consuming all the EUI-64 identifiers, the IEEE/RAC places minimal restrictions on their redistribution through third parties, as follows:

  1. Allocation. The EUI-64 values shall be sold within electronically-readable parts; no more than one EUI-64 value shall be contained within each component that is manufactured.
  2. Packaging. A component containing the EUI-64 value shall have a distinguishing characteristic (such as color or shape) to distinguish it from other commonly-used identifier components.
  3. Documentation. Readily available documentation (see following page).
  4. Legal indemnification. Any organization producing EUI-64 values shall indemnify the IEEE for damages arising from duplicate number assignments.

The term EUI-64 is trademarked by the IEEE. Companies are allowed to use this term for commercial purposes, but only if their use of this term has been reviewed by the IEEE/RAC and the proposed products using the EUI-64 conform to these restrictions.

Application documentation

As a condition for receiving a company_id assignment, a manufacturer of EUI-64 values accepts the following responsibilities:

  1. This documentation shall be readily available (at no cost) to any purchaser of EUI-64 values.
  2. The manufacturer's part specification should include an unambiguous description of how the EUI-64 value is accessed (pin and/or address descriptions).

Manufacturer-assigned identifiers

The manufacturer identifier assignment allows the assignee to generate approximately 1 trillion (10^12 ) unique EUI-64 values, by varying the last 40 bits _/for the 24-bit company identifier or more than 250 million with the 36-bit OUI-36 company identifier/_. The IEEE intends not to assign another OUI/company_id value to a manufacturer of EUI-64 values until the manufacturer has consumed, in product, the preponderance (more than 90%) of this block of potential unique words. It is incumbent upon the manufacturer to ensure that large portions of the unique word block are not left unused in manufacturing.

64-BIT GLOBAL IDENTIFIER FORMAT TUTORIAL

General

The IEEE defined 64-bit global identifier (EUI-64) is assigned by a manufacturer who has been assigned a /company_id / value by the IEEE Registration Authority. The 64-bit identifier is a concatenation of the _/OUI-24 or OUI-36// /_/company_id / value assigned by the IEEE Registration Authority and a _/an/_ extension identifier assigned by the
organization with that /company_id/ assignment_/ to the total of 64-bit EUI-64/_.

The IEEE administers the assignments of /_OUI_/ /company_id/ values. The assignments of these values are public, so that a user of a EUI-64 value can identify the manufacturer that provided any value. The IEEE/RAC has no control over the assignments of _/the/_/__/ extension identifiers and assumes no liability for assignments of duplicate EUI-64 identifiers.

Format

You may have a 64-bit global identifier (EUI-64) provided by an authorized manufacturer of these values (in the form of
electronically-readable chips). The most-significant 24 /_to__ 36 bits_/ of this value are the /company_id/ value assigned to the manufacturer by the IEEE Registration Authority. The least-significant /_28-_/40-bit extension identifier is assigned by the manufacturer.

For example, assume that a manufacturer's IEEE-assigned /_OUI-24_ company_id/ value is ACDE48_16 and the manufacturer-selected extension identifier for a given component is 234567ABCD_16 . The EUI-64 value generated from these two numbers is ACDE48234567ABCD16, whose byte and bit representations are illustrated below:

|        company_id       |            extension identifier           | field 
|addr+0 | addr+1 | addr+2 | addr+3 | addr+4 | addr+5 | addr+6 | addr+7| order
|  AC   |   DE   |   48   |   23   |   45   |   67   |   AB   |   CD  | hex
10101100 11011110 01001000 00100011 01000101 01100111 10101011 11001101 bits
|  |                                                               |  |
|  most significant byte                      least significant byte  |
most-significant bit                              least-significant bit

For example, assume that a manufacturer's IEEE-assigned /_OUI-36_ company_id/ value is 8765432AB16, and the manufacturer-selected extension identifier for a given component is 567ABCD16, . The EUI-64 value generated from these two numbers is 8765432AB567ABCD16, whose byte and bit representations are illustrated below:

|                   company_id           |    extension identifier        |  field 
 |addr+0 | addr+1 | addr+2 | addr+3 |  addr+4   | addr+5 | addr+6 | addr+7 |  order
 |   87   |   65    |   43   |    2A   |   B   5   |   67    |   AB   |    CD   | hex
 10000111 01100101 01000011 00101010  1011  0101 01100111 10101011 11001101 bits
 |   |                                                                  |  |
 |   most significant byte                        least significant  byte  |
 most-significant bit                                 least-significant bit

If provided in byte-addressable media, the original byte-address order of the manufacturer is specified: the most through least significant bytes of the EUI-64 value are contained within the lowest through highest byte addresses, as illustrated above.

When transferred to other electronically-readable locations (within a disk file or network packet, for example) the relative ordering of the bytes may be changed, as specified within the applicable standard.

Restricted encapsulated values

To support encapsulation of EUI-48 and MAC-48 values within small subsets of the EUI-64 values, the first four digits of the manufacturer's extension identifier shall not be FFFF16 or FFFE16. Thus, the 64-bit values of the following form are never-assigned EUI-64 values:

   ccccccFFFEeeeeee16   (an EUI-48 extension)(OUI-24) or cccccccccEeeeeee16 (an EUI-48 extension)(OUI-36)

   ccccccFFFFeeeeee16   (a MAC-48 extension)(OUI-24) or cccccccccFeeeeee16 (an MAC-48 extension)(OUI-36)

The letters 'c' and 'e' represent hexadecimal digits and show how the EUI-48 value can be unambiguously encapsulated within the EUI-64 value; the 'c' and 'e' digits represent the company_id and extension-identifier portions of the EUI-48/MAC-48 values.

This allows MAC-48 and EUI-48 identifiers to be encapsulated and transported as (otherwise unassigned) EUI-64 identifiers. The intent is to enable migration to a single form of OUI/company_id based globally unique 64-bit identifiers.

Encapsulated EUI-48 values

For example, assume that a manufacturer's IEEE-assigned company_id value is ACDE4816 and the manufacturer-selected extension identifier for a given item is 23456716. The EUI-48 value generated from these two numbers is ACDE4823456716, whose byte and bit representations are illustrated below:

|        company_id       |    extension identifier  | field 
        |  AC   |    DE   |   48    |   23   |    45   |   67  |  hex
        10101100 11011110 01001000 00100011 01000101 01100111 bits
        |  |                                              |  |
        |  most significant byte    least significant byte  |
        most-significant bit             least-significant bit

A unique EUI-64 value is generated by concatenating the company_id, an FFFE16 valued label, and the extension identifier values. The (EUI-48 like) significance-ordered representation for this encapsulated EUI-48 identifier is listed below:

The byte and bit representations for this EUI-64 value are illustrated below:

|        company_id       |     EUI label    |   extension identifier  | field 
   |   AC   |   DE    |   48   |    FF   |   FE    |   23   |    45   |   67  |  hex
   10101100 11011110 01001000 11111111  11111110 00100011 01000101 01100111 bits
   |   |                                                                |  |
   |   most significant byte                      least significant  byte  |
   most-significant bit                              least-significant  bit

Encapsulated MAC-48 values

A MAC-48 identifier can be encapsulated and placed within an EUI-64 container. The intent is to allow nonconflicting representation of existing MAC-48 identifiers within the standard EUI-64 format. For example, assume a manufacturer's IEEE-assigned OUI is AC-DE-48 and was used to generate the MAC-48 address:

AC-DE-48-23-45-67

which has the binary transmission-ordered representation:

|            OUI             |     extension identifier   | field
        |  1st   |    2nd   |  3rd     |   4th   |    5th   |   6th  |  octet
        | C   A  |   E   D  |   8   4  |   3   2  |   5   4  |   7   6 | hex
        0011 0101 0111 1011 0001 0010 1100 0100 1010 0100 1110 0110 bits
        |       | |       | |        | |       | |       | |        |
        lsb   msb lsb   msb msb    lsb msb   lsb msb   lsb msb    lsb

A unique EUI-64 value is generated by concatenating the OUI, an FF-FF valued label, and the extension identifier values. The (MAC-48 like) transmission-ordered binary representations for this encapsulated MAC-48 identifier is listed below:

|           OUI           |     MAC label    |   extension identifier  | field 
   |   1st  |  2nd    |  3rd   |  4th   |   5th   |  6th    |  7th   |   8th  | order
   | C   A  |  E   D  |  8   4  |  F   F  |  F   F  |  3   2  |  5   4  |  7  6 |  hex
   00110101 01111011 00010010 11111111  11111111 11000100 10100100 11100110 bits
   |       | |      | |      | |       | |      | |       | |      | |      |
   lsb   msb lsb  msb msb  lsb msb   lsb msb  lsb msb  lsb msb   lsb msb  lsb

The (EUI-48 like) significance-ordered representation for this encapsulated MAC-48 identifier is listed below:

|           OUI           |     MAC label    |   extension identifier  | field 
   |   AC   |   DE    |   48   |    FF   |   FF    |   23   |    45   |   67  |  hex
   10101100 11011110 01001000 11111111  11111111 00100011 01000101 01100111 bits
   |   |                                                               |  |
   |   most significant byte                      least significant  byte  |
   most-significant bit                              least-significant  bit

[1]Except for private company_id values, where the owner of the company_id value is confidential. These shall remain private.