Physical layer device with dual medium access controller path

An apparatus comprising:

• a media-side physical layer (PHY) block configured to receive a received signal via at least one medium, decode the received signal into data, and send the data to a media-side medium access control (MAC) block;
• the media-side MAC block configured to receive the data from the media-side PHY layer block, determine a time of receipt of the data, and send the data and a control time to a system-side MAC block;
• the system-side MAC block configured to receive the data and the control time from the media-side MAC block and send the data to a system-side PHY block after a predetermined delay after the time of receipt of the data based on the control time, the predetermined delay being programmable to accommodate different flow control functions performed by the apparatus;
• the system-side PHY block configured to receive the data from the system-side MAC block, encode the data into a transmitted signal, and transmit the transmitted signal to a computing system;
• and
• a low power policy engine configured to control whether the media-side PHY block is in a low power state based on a number of packets stored in a buffer which stores packets transmitted between the media-side MAC block and the system-side MAC block.

An apparatus comprising:

• a media-side physical layer (PHY) block configured to receive a received signal via at least one medium, decode the received signal into data, and send the data to a media-side medium access control (MAC) block;
• the media-side MAC block configured to receive the data from the media-side PHY layer block, determine a time of receipt of the data, and send the data and a control time to a system-side MAC block;
• the system-side MAC block configured to receive the data and the control time from the media-side MAC block and send the data to a system-side PHY block after a predetermined delay after the time of receipt of the data based on the control time, the predetermined delay being programmable to accommodate different flow control functions performed by the apparatus;
• the system-side PHY block configured to receive the data from the system-side MAC block, encode the data into a transmitted signal, and transmit the transmitted signal to a computing system;
• and
• a low power policy engine configured to control whether the media-side PHY block is in a low power state based on a type of at least one packet destined for the media-side MAC block.