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US 10,320,678 B2Granted
Mapping control protocol time onto a physical layer
AssigneeAvago Technologies International Sales Pte. Limited
InventorRyan Edgar Hirth
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An IDLE insertion technique maps MPCP time onto an EPoC PHY. The techniques address the variability of bandwidth due to bit loading over time. The techniques allow MPCP time to follow wall time at the MAC layer while tracking bytes at the PMD layer. The techniques also facilitate use of the EPON MAC with few changes in an EPoC environment. The bandwidth allocation messages may follow the same format as in EPON, and the techniques may implement IDLE insertion that accounts for EPoC PHY FEC overhead and datarate differences compared to the MAC.
Claims20
A method comprising:
- in a communication device comprising a Media Access Control (MAC) layer and a Physical (PHY) layer:
- determining a MAC layer data rate of the MAC layer;
- determining a PHY layer data rate at which communication will occur over a physical communication medium;
- and
- at the MAC layer:
- determining a rate difference between the MAC layer data rate and the PHY layer data rate;
- communicating a data flow from the MAC layer to the PHY layer, the data flow comprising data for communication over the physical communication medium, including inserting IDLE characters into the data flow responsive to the rate difference;
- and
- in the PHY layer, replacing, prior to forward error correction encoding, selected IDLE characters among those inserted into the data flow at the MAC layer with data bytes of the data flow received from the MAC layer to adapt to the rate difference between the MAC layer and the PHY layer.
6 more elements
A system comprising:
- control circuitry characterized by a control layer data rate;
- and
- communication medium circuitry comprising:
- a communication interface to a communication medium;
- where:
- the communication medium characterized by a transmit data rate at which
- the communication interface places data onto the communication medium;
- at the control circuitry:
- determining a rate difference between the control layer data rate and the transmit data rate;
- preparing a data flow for the communication medium circuitry;
- and
- responsive to the rate difference, inserting spacing characters in the data flow to the communication medium circuitry, wherein the spacing characters are inserted into the data flow after a start of a packet and before an interpacket gap;
- and
- the communication medium circuitry configured to:
- replace selected spacing characters among those inserted into the data flow at the control circuitry with data bytes of the data flow received from the control circuitry to adapt to the rate difference between the control layer data rate and the transmit data rate.
12 more elements
A system comprising:
- an optical communication interface;
- a coaxial communication interface;
- control circuitry in communication with the optical communication interface and the coaxial communication interface, the control circuitry comprising:
- a Media Access Control (MAC) layer configured to operate at a fixed MAC layer data rate;
- and
- a Physical (PHY) layer configured to transmit data through the coaxial communication interface at a PHY layer data rate subrated with respect to the fixed MAC layer data rate;
- where:
- the MAC layer is configured to:
- determine a rate difference between the fixed MAC layer data rate and the PHY layer data rate;
- communicate a datastream from the MAC layer to the PHY layer, the datastream comprising data bits for communication through the coaxial communication interface;
- and
- insert, into the datastream, IDLE characters for adapting the PHY layer to the rate difference;
- and
- the PHY layer is configured to:
- hold data from the datastream received from the MAC layer;
- and
- replace selected IDLE characters among those inserted at the MAC layer with the data from the datastream that was held in the PHY layer due to the rate difference.
14 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.