Physical layer device with dual medium access controller path

摘要

According to one example embodiment, an apparatus may include 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, prevent a system-side MAC block from forwarding the data until a predetermined delay after the time of receipt, perform MAC functions on the data, and send the data to the 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 the predetermined delay based on signals received from the media-side MAC block, and 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.

主权项

1. 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 idle statistics received from the system-side MAC block.