Intel Corporation

Eric M Lee

Venkatraman Iyer

Rahul R Shah

William R Halleck

Debendra Das Sharma

Daniel S Froelich

Michelle C Jen

Systems, methods, and apparatuses including a Physical layer (PHY) block coupled to a Media Access Control layer (MAC) block via a PHY/MAC interface. Each of the PHY and MAC blocks include a plurality of Physical Interface for PCI Express (PIPE) registers. The PHY/MAC interface includes a low pin count PIPE interface comprising a small set of wires coupled between the PHY block and the MAC block. The MAC block is configured to multiplex command, address, and data over the low pin count PIPE interface to access the plurality of PHY PIPE registers, and the PHY block is configured to multiplex command, address, and data over the low pin count PIPE interface to access the plurality of MAC PIPE registers. The PHY block may also be selectively configurable to implement a PIPE architecture to operate in a PIPE mode and a serialization and deserialization (SERDES) architecture to operate in a SERDES mode.

Bimodal PHY for low latency in high speed interconnects

Bimodal phy for low latency in high speed interconnects

Systems, methods, and apparatuses including a Physical layer (PHY) block coupled to a Media Access Control layer (MAC) block via a PHY/MAC interface. Each of the PHY and MAC blocks include a plurality of Physical Interface for PCI Express (PIPE) registers. The PHY/MAC interface includes a low pin count PIPE interface comprising a small set of wires coupled between the PHY block and the MAC block. The low pin count PIPE interface is configured to transfer register commands between the PHY and MAC blocks over the small set of wires in a time-multiplexed manner to support read and write access of the PHY and MAC PIPE registers. The PHY block may also be selectively configurable to implement a PIPE architecture when operating in a PIPE mode and a serialization and deserialization (SERDES) architecture when operating in a SERDES mode.

An apparatus that includes a physical interface for a serial interconnect is provided. The physical interface includes a buffer that is selectable to function as a drift buffer or an elastic buffer by a voltage level on a buffer control line. The physical interface also includes encoding logic that can be enabled or disabled by a voltage level on a logic control line. Further, the physical interface also includes and an ordered set generator that can be enabled or disabled by a voltage level on a communications control line.

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Fort Collins, CO, United States of America

Eric M Lee