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US 8,276,011 B2Granted
System and method for tunneling control over a MAC/PHY interface for legacy ASIC support
AssigneeBroadcom Corporation
InventorsWael William Diab, Maurice David Caldwell
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for tunneling control over a MAC/PHY interface for legacy ASIC support. Energy efficient Ethernet control or status information can be communicated over a MAC/PHY interface using control codes that are embedded in sequence ordered sets. These sequence ordered sets would not affect the data flow and can be tunneled within an existing interface (e.g., XAUI, XFI, xxMII or derivative interfaces) without generating errors.
Claims20
An energy efficient Ethernet method in a physical layer device, comprising:
- determining, by an energy efficiency control policy contained in the physical layer device, a need to transition between energy saving states, said determination being based on an analysis by said energy efficiency control policy of link utilization indicated by traffic-based measurements, said determination being independent of an energy saving state change command that is directed to the physical layer device from a higher layer;
- generating, in response to said determination of said need to transition between energy saving states, a first physical coding sublayer code group having a value that indicates a sequence ordered set and one or more additional physical coding sublayer code groups that indicate a transition of the physical layer device to a new energy saving state;
- and
- transmitting information including said first physical coding sublayer code group and said one or more additional physical coding sublayer code groups to a media access control layer, said transmitted information alerting said media access control layer that the physical layer device has transitioned to said new energy saving state.
1 more element
A physical layer device that is coupled to a media access control layer, the physical layer device being coupled to a remote link partner via a communication link, comprising:
- an energy efficiency control policy, said energy efficiency control policy analyzing utilization of said communication link as indicated by traffic-based measurements, said energy efficiency control policy determining a need to transition between energy saving states based on said analysis, said determination being independent of an energy saving state command by a higher layer, said energy efficiency control policy initiating, in response to said determination a, first physical coding sublayer code group having a value indicates a sequence ordered set and one or more additional physical coding sublayer code groups that indicate a transition of the physical layer device to a new energy saving state;
- and
- an interface to said media access control layer, said interface transmitting, from the physical layer device to said media access control layer, information that includes said first physical coding sublayer code group and said one or more additional physical coding sublayer code groups, said transmitted information alerting said media access control layer that the physical layer device has transitioned to a said new energy saving state.
A physical layer device, comprising:
- one or more circuits that are configured to:
- determine a need to transition between energy saving states, said determination being based on an analysis by an energy efficiency control policy of link utilization indicated by traffic-based measurements, said determination being independent of an energy saving state change command that is directed to the physical layer device from a higher layer;
- generate, in response to said determination of said need to transition between energy saving states, a first physical coding sublayer code group having a value that indicates a sequence ordered set and one or more additional physical coding sublayer code groups that indicate a transition of the physical layer device to a new energy saving state;
- and
- transmit information including said first physical coding sublayer code group and said one or more additional physical coding sublayer code groups to a media access control layer, said transmitted information alerting said media access control layer that the physical layer device has transitioned to said new energy saving state.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.