Broadcom Corporation

Sang Bui

Oscar Ernesto Agazzi

Scott R Powell

Mehmet Vakif Tazebay

Peiqing Wang

Bruce Howard Conway

Mark Berman

Communication devices coupled via a communication link may comprise physical layer devices that may be operable to determine presence of a received signal and to mitigate noise in the signal prior to processing and/or validating the signal. Analog and/or digital signal processing may be utilized to process the signal and/or mitigate noise in the signal. Noise mitigation may comprise near-end crosstalk cancelling and/or echo cancelling and/or may utilize local transmit signal information. Subsequent to noise mitigation, samples of the noise reduced signal may be accumulated and/or an average signal strength and/or average signal power level may be determined. The average signal strength and/or average signal power level may be compared to one or more thresholds which may be configurable and/or programmable.

Method and system for a combined signal detection for physical layer communication devices

A method and system for performing diagnostic tests on a communications system. Diagnostic test signals are generated by a transceiver included within the communications system. Diagnostic data signals generated within the communications system in response to the diagnostic test signals are collected by the transceiver. The communications transceiver may operate alone, with an assisting communications transceiver, or with a non-assisting communications transceiver. The collected diagnostic data signals are stored and made available for later analysis. The method and system are used to generate and store ECHO Crosstalk, Near End Cross Talk (NEXT) and Far End CrossTalk (FEXT) data signals.

Method and apparatus for performing diagnostic tests using an assisting transceiver

A system includes an adaptive filter coupled to a communication channel. The adaptive filter includes a set of adaptive filter coefficients. A memory stores a predetermined set of filter coefficient thresholds. The filter coefficient thresholds may be indicative of channel faults or a length of the channel. A controller is configured to compare the set of filter coefficients to the predetermined set of filter coefficient thresholds. The controller is configured to determine the information about the channel based on compare results.

Channel diagnostic systems and methods

A method is used to determine information about a communication channel using an adaptive filter coupled to the channel. The adaptive filter includes adaptive filter coefficients. The filter coefficients are compared to filter coefficient thresholds. A determination is made whether one of a communication link and a channel fault exists. If a channel fault exists, a determination is made whether, i) a cable open condition exists in the channel, and ii) a cable short condition exists in the channel. An indication is made whether the channel is one of linked, open, and shorted.

Methods for performing channel diagnostics

An apparatus for processing a received signal includes an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) configured to produce a sampled signal from a received signal using a candidate sampling phase. An adaptive filter includes adaptive filter coefficients and is configured to receive the sampled signal and converge the filter coefficients based on the candidate sampling phase. A controller includes a module for comparing the converged filter coefficients to filter coefficient thresholds, and a module for determining a largest filter coefficient among one or more excessive filter coefficients that exceed one or more corresponding filter coefficient thresholds. The apparatus is stepped through multiple candidate sampling phases. A best sampling phase is selected based on the largest filter coefficients associated with the candidate sampling phases.

Method and apparatus for determining a receiver sampling phase for use in diagnosing a channel

A single integrated circuit includes logic that supports 10BASE-T, 100BASE-T and 1000BASE-T transceiver functionality. The invention implements power management techniques by placing unused functionality in sleep mode. When the functionality is required later, then that functionality may be awakened again and used as required for the particular situation. A processor is able to interact with the media access controller (MAC), and the MAC then communicates with the physical layer (PHY). The invention is adaptable to various devices that are capable to operating using 10BASE-T, 100BASE-T and 1000BASE-T, even those the PHY of these devices may be somewhat different.

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Irvine, CA, United States of America

Sang Bui