Physical Layer for Peripheral Interconnect with Reduced Power and Area

摘要

An integrated circuit (IC) implements an industry standard-defined peripheral interconnect to connect to another integrated circuit or component in a system. The industry standard specification includes a software interface that is well-defined and implemented by various software in the system, and thus is desirable to retain. However, the physical interconnect in the systems employing the integrated circuit may be short, and thus the elaborate physical layer definition may consume more integrated circuit area and power than is otherwise desirable in the IC. The IC may implement a simpler and more power-efficient physical layer, reducing both power consumption and semiconductor substrate area consumption, in some embodiments.

主权项

1. An integrated circuit having a peripheral interconnect to communicate with a peripheral device according to an industry standard specification, the integrated circuit comprising:
a controller circuit configured to provide a media access control layer interface to the peripheral interconnect that complies with the industry standard specification; and a physical interface layer circuit coupled to the controller circuit, wherein the physical interface layer circuit is configured to:
drive and receive signals on the peripheral interconnect; anddrive an idle symbol on the signals when the peripheral interface is idle using a single non-toggling idle symbol in place of at least two alternating idle symbols specified by the industry standard specification.