Method and device for supporting Ethernet self-consultation in medium access control

[0031] Refer to Figure 4 As shown, the device of the present invention includes a media access control (MAC) module, a serial independent media interface/source synchronous serial independent media interface module (ie a serial independent media interface or a source synchronous serial independent media interface module, referred to as SMII/SS-SMII module), data input/output management module (abbreviated as MDIO module) and selection control module. The serial independent media interface/source synchronous serial independent media interface module is connected to the MAC module and the external physical layer chip, and the data input/output management module is connected to the external physical layer chip through the interface for obtaining from the physical layer chip PHY Status information; the irrelevant media interface module and the data input/output management module are respectively connected to the selection control module to report the acquired status information; the selection control module is connected to the media access module to select one group from multiple groups of status information Provided to the media access control module.

[0032] The present invention utilizes the newly added selection control module (MAC_CTRL module) to realize the function of MAC module supporting auto-negotiation.

[0033] The MDIO module and SMII/SS-SMII module obtain the status information from the PHY according to their respective protocols, and then report it to the MAC_CTRL module.

[0034] The MAC_CTRL module provides a configuration interface that can directly specify the working status of a port through software.

[0035] The MAC_CTRL module collects the port status information sent by the MDIO module, SMII/SS-SMII module and the processor (the software directly specifies the working status of the port), and then selects a group of status information and sends it to the MAC module.

[0036] Refer to Figure 5 , The figure shows the structure that the MAC_CTRL module supports for a port auto-negotiation function, where:

[0037] Link status link_smii, speed status speed_smii and duplex status duplex_smii are the port status information sent by SMII/SS-SMII module;

[0038] Link status link_mdio, speed status speed_mdio and duplex status duplex_mdio are the port status information sent by the MDIO module;

[0039] Link status link_cpu, speed status speed_cpu and duplex status duplex_cpu are the port status information sent by the CPU;

[0040] Link state link_state, speed state speed_state and duplex state duplex_state are the port state information selected by the MAC_CTRL module.

[0041] The MAC_CTRL module selects a group of status information according to the value of the selection signal sel, and sends it to the MAC module and the SMII/SS-SMII module. The selection signal can be represented by two bits.

[0042] For example: when sel is "00" (representing the value of two bits, the same as described later), select the status information provided by the SMII/SS-SMII module; when sel is "01", select the status information provided by the CPU; When sel is "10" or "11", select the status information provided by the MDIO module. The value of sel can be configured through the CPU interface, the default is "00", that is, the default state is provided by the SMII/SS-SMII module.

[0043]The MAC module and SMII/SS-SMII module switch the working state according to the state information provided by the MAC_CTRL module, so as to ensure the consistency of the working state of the MAC, SMII/SS-SMII module and PHY.

[0044] by Figure 4 It can be seen that the switch generally contains multiple ports, so there are multiple and multiple ports in the MAC_CTRL module. Figure 5 The same selection circuit, but the selection signal sel is different, so that the purpose of controllable by port can be realized.