Method and apparatus for performing wake on LAN power management
AssigneeBroadcom Corporation
InventorSang T. Bui
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A single integrated circuit includes logic that supports 10BASE-T, 100BASE-T and 1000BASE-T transceiver functionality. The invention implements power management techniques by placing unused functionality in sleep mode. When the functionality is required later, then that functionality may be awakened again and used as required for the particular situation. A processor is able to interact with the media access controller (MAC), and the MAC then communicates with the physical layer (PHY). The invention is adaptable to various devices that are capable to operating using 10BASE-T, 100BASE-T and 1000BASE-T, even those the PHY of these devices may be somewhat different.
Claims20
A method to operate a system that is operable to support 10 megabit functionality, 100 megabit functionality, and gigabit functionality, the method comprising:
- operating the 10 megabit functionality, the 100 megabit functionality and the gigabit functionality;
- putting two functionalities selected from the 10 megabit functionality, the 100 megabit functionality and the gigabit functionality into sleep mode;
- and
- continuing to operate a remaining functionality selected from the 10 megabit functionality, the 100 megabit functionality and the gigabit functionality, the remaining functionality not being put into sleep mode.
A method to put an integrated circuit into sleep mode, the integrated circuit comprises a plurality of management registers, the plurality of management registers comprising a wake on LAN bit, a restart auto-negotiation bit, and an advertisement register, the method comprising:
- setting the wake-on-LAN bit;
- changing the advertisement register;
- setting the restart auto-negotiation bit;
- auto-negotiating a capability set;
- and
- gating-off logic associated with the capability set after completing auto-negotiation.
A method to wake an integrated circuit from sleep mode, the integrated circuit comprises a plurality of management registers, the plurality of management registers comprising a wake on LAN bit, a restart auto-negotiation bit, and an advertisement register, the method comprising:
- clearing the wake-on-LAN bit using a media access controller;
- changing the advertisement register in a physical layer by using the media access controller;
- setting the restart auto-negotiation bit in the physical layer by using the media access controller;
- turning on a plurality of clocks using the physical layer;
- and
- starting auto-negotiation, at the physical layer, after turning on the plurality of clocks.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.