The 3Com 40-0196 chip, also known as the 3Com EtherLink III LAN PC Card, was a popular network interface card (NIC) for laptops and mobile computers in the late 1990s. This PC Card (PCMCIA) was designed to provide Ethernet connectivity to laptops, allowing users to connect to local area networks (LANs) and access the internet.

The 3Com 40-0196 chip supported 10 Mbps Ethernet speeds, which were considered fast at the time. It was a reliable and widely used option for mobile professionals who needed network connectivity while on the go. However, as technology evolved, it eventually became obsolete with the advent of faster and more advanced networking technologies.