Methods and network device for uncoded bit protection in 10GBASE-T Ethernet

A method for processing a fixed-length frame in a network interface device, the method comprising:

• receiving, at a network interface device, a fixed-length frame, the fixed-length frame including a first set of encoded bits and a second set of encoded bits corresponding to demodulated constellation points in a signal received via a communication link, wherein respective values of bits in the second set of encoded bits correspond to respective clusters of adjacent constellation points among a plurality of clusters of adjacent constellation points, and wherein respective values of bits in the first set of encoded bits correspond to respective constellation points within the respective clusters of adjacent constellation points;
• decoding, at a first error correction code decoder of the network interface device, the first set of encoded bits according to a first error correction encoding scheme to generate a first set of bits among decoded bits, the first set of encoded bits including a set of first parity bits for protecting bits in the first set of encoded bits;
• decoding, at a second error correction code decoder of the network interface device, the second set of encoded bits according to a second error correction encoding scheme to generate a second set of bits among the decoded bits, the second set of encoded bits including a set of second parity bits for protecting bits in the second set of encoded bits, wherein i) a number of parity bits in the set of second parity bits is less than a number of parity bits in the set of first parity bits and ii) a sum of the number of parity bits in the first set of parity bits and the number of parity bits in the second set of parity bits do not exceed a number of bits in the fixed-length frame available for use as parity bits in the fixed-length frame;
• generating, at the network interface device, a first set of bit blocks and a second set of bit blocks from the decoded bits at least by de-aggregating the decoded bits;
• and
• decoding, at a decoder of the network interface device, the first set of bit blocks and the second set of bit blocks to generate a plurality of uncoded bits.