Method and apparatus for managing external physical layer devices

摘要

Every external physical layer device coupled to a multiport data communication switch is polled in succession to determine status and control information relating to the external physical layer device. The polling procedure performed automatically at regular time intervals is interleaved with management accesses to the external PHYs initiated by a host processor. The host management access may be performed to write or read management data to or from a particular register in a particular external physical layer device.