Physical layer (PHY) with smart cable analyzing (SCA) and apparatus employing the same
OwnerTsu-Chun Liu, Chieh-Yuan Ke +4inventors
InventorsTsu-Chun Liu, Chieh-Yuan Ke, Chung-Cheng Chen, Tien-Ju Tsai, Jean-Ming Lee, Kun-Che Chung
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Abstract
A physical layer with smart cable analyzing (SCA) and the apparatus employing the same. When poor quality is possibly found in the cable connecting to the physical layer, its loop back controller is used to control the timing for entering into the loop back test mode, so as to analyze the cable quality and assist the user to exclude the root cause of the problem.
Claims27
A physical layer with smart cable analyzing (SCA), suitable for transmitting and receiving a packet on a network, and has an access interface that connects to a Media Access Controller (MAC), comprising:
- a loop back controller, used to generate a management packet and determine timing for entering into a loop back test mode according to an instruction command;
- a transmitting multiplexer circuit, coupled to the loop back controller, used to selectively switch a packet transmitting path from the access interface to the loop back controller when the loop back controller intends to send out the management packet;
- a packet transmitter, coupled to the transmitting multiplexer circuit, used to drive and transmit the management packet onto the network;
- a packet receiver, used to receive the management packet from the network;
- a management packet discriminator, coupled to the packet receiver, used to determine whether the packet received from the packet receiver is the management packet or not;
- and
- a receiving multiplexer circuit, coupled to the management packet discriminator and the loop back controller, used to selectively switch a packet transmitting path from the access interface to the loop back controller when the management packet discriminator determines the received packet is the management packet.
A network apparatus, suitable for transmitting and receiving a packet on a network, comprising:
- a physical layer, used to transmit and receive the packet on the network and generate a management packet according to an instruction command, and also used to determine whether the received packet is the management packet or not, if the management packet is received, the timing for entering into the loop back test mode is determined and replied according to the management packet;
- a MAC, coupled to the physical layer via an access interface, used to process and transmit the received packet;
- and
- an isolation transformer, coupled to the physical layer, used to isolate noises on the network.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.