ADAPTIVE PAUSE TIME ENERGY EFFICIENT ETHERNET PHY

摘要

An energy efficient Ethernet physical layer (PHY) device including an EEE control module configured to generate a control signal to transition the PHY device into a low power consumption mode based an operating condition, and a pause frame generator module responsive to the control signals to generate a pause frame. The pause frame generator module is configured to send the pause frame to a media access control (MAC) device to reduce an incoming flow of data packets from the MAC device to the PHY device for a pause time duration. In operation, the pause frame generator module generates the pause frame including a pause time indicating the length of time for the PHY device to be in the low power consumption mode. The value of the pause time for each pause frame is determined adaptively based on the type of data traffic to be transmitted from the PHY device.

主权项

1. An energy efficient Ethernet (EEE) physical layer device for a wired Ethernet network equipment to be coupled to a media access control device, comprising:
an EEE control module configured to generate one or more control signals to transition the physical layer device for a wired Ethernet network equipment into a low power consumption mode based on one or more operating conditions; and a pause frame generator module coupled to the EEE control module and responsive to the one or more control signals to generate a pause frame including a pause time, the pause frame generator module being configured to send the pause frame to the associated media access control device to reduce an incoming flow of data packets from the media access control device to the physical layer device for the duration of the pause time, wherein the pause frame generator module generates the pause frame comprising the pause time indicating the length of time for the physical layer device to be in the low power consumption mode, the value of the pause time for each pause frame being determined adaptively based on the type of data traffic to be transmitted from the physical layer device; and wherein the EEE control module is configured to generate a control signal for the pause frame generator module indicative of the pause time to be used with each pause frame, the value of the pause time being determined based on one or more algorithms defining a shorter or a longer time for the physical layer device to be in the low power consumption mode as a function of the type of data packet to be transmitted from the physical layer device.