Controlling A Physical Link Of A First Protocol Using An Extended Capability Structure Of A Second Protocol
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorMahesh Wagh
Life of this patent
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Abstract
In one embodiment, a method includes accessing a first field of a first link capabilities register of a first device having a protocol stack including a transaction layer and a link layer according to a first communication protocol and a physical layer of the protocol stack having a physical unit of a second communication protocol, using the first field as a pointer value to a location in a second link capabilities register of the first device, and using information from the location in the second link capabilities register to perform a configuration operation for a physical link coupled to the device. Other embodiments are described and claimed.
Claims20
An apparatus comprising:
- a protocol stack for a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express™ (PCIe™) communication protocol, the protocol stack including a transaction layer and a link layer;
- a physical (PHY) unit coupled to the protocol stack to provide communication between the apparatus and a device coupled to the apparatus via a physical link, the PHY unit of a low power communication protocol and including a physical unit circuit according to the low power communication protocol and a logical layer to interface the protocol stack to the physical unit circuit;
- and
- a capabilities structure including a plurality of registers each to store capability information, status information, or control information.
A method comprising:
- accessing a first field of a first link capabilities register of a first device having a protocol stack including a transaction layer and a link layer according to a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express™ (PCIe™) communication protocol and a physical layer of the protocol stack having a physical (PHY) unit of a second communication protocol, the first device coupled to a second device via a physical link;
- using the first field as a pointer value to a location in a second link capabilities register of the first device;
- and
- using information from the location in the second link capabilities register to perform a configuration operation for the physical link.
A system comprising:
- a first device including:
- a transaction layer in accordance with a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe™) communication protocol;
- a data link layer in accordance with the PCIe™ communication protocol;
- a physical layer including a physical layer transmit controller and a physical (PHY) unit transmit circuit in accordance with a second communication protocol, wherein the physical layer transmit controller is to adapt the PHY unit transmit circuit to the transaction layer and the data link layer of the PCIe™ communication protocol;
- and
- a first capabilities structure including a plurality of registers each to store capability information, status information, or control information, at least some of the capability information set to predetermined values to adapt the PHY unit transmit circuit to the transaction layer and the data link layer of the PCIe™ communication protocol;
- and
- a second device coupled to the first device via a link of the second communication protocol.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.