System and method for providing compatibility between different transceivers in a multi-pair communication system

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed that provide for compatibility between different generations of transceivers, such as Gigabit Ethernet transceivers. According to the invention, a novel transceiver is provided that includes a physical layer entity (PHY) comprising a physical coding sublayer (PCS) and a physical medium attachment (PMA) sublayer. In one embodiment, the PHY is designed to switch the PCS encoding / decoding scheme to a legacy-based encoding / decoding scheme in a situation where it is determined that the remote transceiver in communication with the novel transceiver is transmitting data according to a legacy-based scheme.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION(S) [0001] The present application claims priority on the basis of the following provisional application: Ser. No. 60 / 172,102 entitled “Algorithm for Gigabit PCS Compatibility” filed on Dec. 23, 1999.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates generally to high-speed multi-pair communication systems, for example, Gigabit Ethernet systems (also called 1000BASE-T standard). More particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods that provide for interoperability between different types of transceivers included in those communication systems. [0003] In recent years, local area network (LAN) applications have become more and more prevalent as a means for providing local interconnect between personal computer systems, work stations and servers. Because of the breadth of its installed base, the 10BASE-T implementation of Ethernet remains the most pervasive, if not the dominant, network technology for LANs. However, as the ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The invention provides a system and method for making different types of transceivers compatible with each other. The invention includes a novel transceiver with a special layer called PHY that can switch between different encoding / decoding schemes. The PHY can detect the type of encoding being used by a remote transceiver and switch to a compatible scheme. This allows for seamless communication between different types of transceivers."

Problems solved by technology

However, as the need to exchange information becomes more and more imperative, and as the scope and size of the information being exchanged increases, higher and higher speeds (greater bandwidth) are required from network interconnect technologies.

Simultaneous, parallel transmission of four information signals over four twisted wire pairs poses substantial challenges to bidirectional communication transceivers, even though the data rate on any one wire pair is “only” 250 Mbps.

Some of those legacy components do not operate in a manner consistent with the protocols set forth in the IEEE 802.3 standard.

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