System and method of providing electrical isolation

A circuit device for use within a powered device, the circuit device comprising:

• a physical transport layer (PHY) circuit including multiple channels coupled to an I/O interface, the PHY circuit adapted to send data to and receive data from a network device via the multiple channels;
• a multiplexer circuit coupled to the PHY circuit to multiplex data from the multiple channels onto a bidirectional input/output (I/O) interface bus;
• and
• a digital isolation barrier circuit coupled to the bidirectional I/O interface bus and adapted to electrically isolate processing logic from the multiplexer circuit, the PHY circuit, and the I/O interface.

A method of providing electrical isolation, the method comprising:

• receiving data via multiple channels from an input/output (I/O) interface at a physical transport layer (PHY) circuit of a powered device;
• multiplexing the data from the multiple channels into a multiplexed data stream for transmission via a media independent interface (MII) bus using a multiplexer coupled to the PHY circuit;
• and
• electrically isolating the PHY circuit from media access control (MAC) circuitry coupled to the MII bus using a digital isolation barrier coupled between the multiplexer and the MAC circuitry.