System and method for dynamic power control for energy efficient physical layer communication devices
AssigneeBroadcom Corporation
InventorsMehmet Tazebay, Scott Powell, Peiqing Wang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for dynamic power control for energy efficient physical layer communication devices. Energy-efficiency features are continually being developed to conserve energy in links between such energy-efficient devices. These energy-efficient devices interoperate with many legacy devices that have already been deployed. In these links, energy savings can be produced by having a local receiver enter an energy saving state based upon the receipt of standard IDLE signals.
Claims15
A physical layer communication device, comprising:
- a receiver;
- control policy logic that powers down at least part of said receiver in response to a control signal;
- and
- a monitoring module that detects a presence of a sequence of a plurality of Ethernet idle signals that are received from a remote device at said receiver, wherein said sequence of said plurality of Ethernet idle signals are transmitted by said remote device when said remote device is in an active communication state for data communication, said Ethernet idle signals being designed to enable said receiver to maintain clock synchronization during said active communication state and being transmitted by said remote device during said active communication state whenever said remote device has no data or control information to transmit to the physical layer communication device,
- wherein said detected presence of said sequence of said plurality of Ethernet idle signals are monitored relative to a programmable threshold to generate said control signal.
A method performed by a physical layer communication device, comprising:
- receiving a transmission of data from a link partner while said link partner and the physical layer communication device are in an active communication state, said active communication state supporting data transmission;
- monitoring, by a monitoring module in the physical layer communication device, a sequence of a plurality of idle signals received at a receiver of the physical layer communication device relative to a programmable threshold, said idle signals being transmitted by said link partner during said active communication state whenever said remote device has no data or control information to transmit to the physical layer communication device;
- powering down at least part of said receiver based on a control signal produced by said monitoring;
- and
- maintaining a transmitter of the physical layer communication device in a fully powered state that supports data transmission while said at least part of said receiver is powered down.
A method in a local physical layer communication device, comprising:
- receiving a sequence of a plurality of Ethernet idle signals from a remote physical layer communication device while said remote physical layer communication device is in a fully powered state, said Ethernet idle signals being transmitted by said remote physical layer communication device during said fully powered state whenever said remote physical layer communication device has no data or control information to transmit to the physical layer communication device;
- monitoring said received sequence of said plurality of Ethernet idle signals relative to a programmable threshold;
- and
- powering down at least part of a receiver of the local physical layer communication device to conserve power based on a control signal generated using said monitoring.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.