Technologies for autonegotiating 10G and 1G serial communications over copper cable

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11277308-B2
Application number	US-202016847336-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 13, 2020
Priority date	Dec 3, 2014
Publication date	Mar 15, 2022
Grant date	Mar 15, 2022

Abstract

Technologies for autonegotiation of communications operational modes over copper cable include a network port logic having a communication link coupled to a remote link partner. The network port logic may start an autonegotiation protocol upon reset, when the link is broken, or upon manual renegotiation. The network port logic transmits an autonegotiation page to the remote link partner that indicates single-lane communications ability over copper cable. The network port logic receives an autonegotiation page from the link partner indicating single-lane communications ability over copper cable. If the network port logic and link partner have a common single-lane communication ability, the link may be activated. The autonegotiation pages may be base pages or next pages. The single-lane communication ability may be indicated by one or more bits of the autonegotiation pages. The link may be established at 1 gigabit or 10 gigabits per second. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising:
a high speed Ethernet subsystem comprising:
media access controller (MAC) circuitry;
physical coding sublayer (PCS) circuitry;
a port;
auto-negotiation circuitry to:
generate first auto-negotiation data to send on the port, wherein the first auto-negotiation data comprises a base page, the base page comprises a technology ability field to indicate that a first operational mode and a second operational mode are supported by the apparatus, the first operational mode comprises a single-lane communication over copper cable mode, and the second operational mode comprises a multi-lane communication over copper cable mode;
identify second auto-negotiation data received on the port from a device, wherein the second auto-negotiation data indicates that the device also supports the first operational mode and the second operational mode; and

wherein the port comprises circuitry to activate a communication link in one of the first or second operational modes to couple the port to the device based on an auto-negotiation based on the first and second auto-negotiation data.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the high-speed Ethernet subsystem supports a data rate of at least 10 Gb/s.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more ports comprise a physical coding sublayer (PCS).

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the one or more ports comprise a forward error correction (FEC) sublayer.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the high-speed Ethernet subsystem further comprises physical medium attachment (PMA) circuitry.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the base page comprises a differential Manchester encoding (DME) page.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the second auto-negotiation data comprises one of a base page or a next page.

8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the communication link comprises an Ethernet communication link.

9. The device of claim 8 , wherein the first operational mode comprises a single lane operational mode over copper at at least 10 Gb/s.

10. The device of claim 8 , wherein the second operational mode comprises a multi-lane 40 Gb/s operational mode.

11. The device of claim 8 , wherein the base page further indicates that a third operational mode is supported by the apparatus.

12. The device of claim 11 , wherein the third operational mode comprises a backplane operational mode.

13. The device of claim 12 , wherein the third operational mode comprises a single-lane mode.

14. The device of claim 12 , wherein the third operational mode comprises a multi-lane mode.

15. The device of claim 8 , wherein the second operational mode comprises communication over four lanes.

16. A system comprising:
a multi-processor system-on-chip (SOC) device comprising:
a plurality of processor devices; and
a high speed Ethernet subsystem comprising:
media access controller (MAC) circuitry;
physical coding sublayer (PCS) circuitry;
a port;
auto-negotiation circuitry to:
generate first auto-negotiation data to send on the port, wherein the first auto-negotiation data comprises a base page, the base page comprises a technology ability field to indicate that a first operational mode and a second operational mode are supported by the apparatus, the first operational mode comprises a single-lane communication over copper cable mode, and the second operational mode comprises a multi-lane communication over copper cable mode;
identify second auto-negotiation data received on the port from a device, wherein the second auto-negotiation data indicates that the device also supports the first operational mode and the second operational mode; and

wherein the port comprises circuitry to activate a communication link in one of the first or second operational modes to couple the port to the device based on an auto-negotiation based on the first and second auto-negotiation data.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the high-speed Ethernet subsystem supports a data rate of at least 10 Gb/s.

18. The system of claim 16 , wherein the one or more ports comprise a physical coding sublayer (PCS).

19. The system of claim 16 , wherein the one or more ports comprise a forward error correction (FEC) sublayer.

20. The system of claim 16 , wherein the high-speed Ethernet subsystem further comprises physical medium attachment (PMA) circuitry.

Assignees

• Intel Corp

Inventors

• Lusted Kent C
• Ran Adee O

Classifications

• H04L49/3054

  Auto-negotiation, e.g. access control between switch gigabit interface connector [GBIC] and link · CPC title

• H04L41/0886 Primary

  Fully automatic configuration · CPC title

• H04L69/24

  Negotiation of communication capabilities · CPC title