METHOD AND DEVICE FOR MANAGING MULTI-FRAMES

摘要

A device having multi-frame transmission and reception capabilities and a method for transmitting and receiving multi-frames. The device (10) includes a processor (220), a time slot assigner (264), connected to a communication line (20) via a physical layer unit (290) . The physical layer unit (290) is adapted to generate a communication line clock signal (LINE_TX_CLK1) and a multi-frame synchronization signal (MFRAME_TX_SYNC1) . The device (10) is characterized by including a transmit media access controller (MAC) (264) connected to the physical layer unit (290) whereas the MAC (262) is adapted to receive the MFRAME_TX_SYNC1 and LINE_TX_CLK1 191 signals and in response to scan, during a single multi-frame transmission period, multiple transmit MAC memory entry groups (150(1)- 150(K)) such as to retrieve transmission instructions and in response to enable access to the communication line (20) . Each transmit MAC memory entry group (150 (k) ) stores transmission instructions that control a transmission of a frame. During a single multi-frame transmission period the transmit MAC (264) accesses at least twice at least one transmit MAC memory entry group; and whereas the processor (220) is adapted to generate the multiple transmission instructions. The processor (220) receives a processor clock signal (PR_CLK) that differs from LINE_TX_CLKl . The MAC also performs reception operations using receive clock and sync signals.