Patent ID: 9740455
Date: 2017-08-22
CPC Classifications: G06F,H04L,Y02D

Claim:
1. A physical-layer circuit in a network device, the physical-layer circuit comprising: a memory to receive data from a media access controller at a first rate, wherein the media access controller is in the network device and separate from the physical-layer circuit; a physical-layer device to (i) receive the data from the memory, and (ii) transmit the data from the physical-layer circuit to a peer device, wherein the physical-layer device is to transmit the data from the memory to the peer device at a second rate, wherein an amount of data stored in the memory is based on a difference between the first rate and the second rate, and wherein the second rate is less than the first rate; and a control circuit coupled to the memory and the physical-layer device, wherein the control circuit is to (i) monitor the amount of the data stored in the memory, and (ii) if the amount of the data stored in the memory exceeds a predetermined threshold, transmit a first frame from the control circuit to the media access controller to decrease the first rate at which the media access controller transfers the data to the memory, wherein the control circuit is connected between the media access controller and the physical-layer device.