Patent ID: 7639712
Filing Date: 2009-12-29
Classification: H04L,H04W

Abstract:
1. A media-access control (MAC) unit that processes the flow of data a first processor and a physical-layer control unit of a network communications component, the physical-layer control unit interfacing with a communications medium and having an input port to receive data in the form of forward error correction (FEC) blocks to be transmitted to the communications medium and an output port to provide data in the form of FEC blocks that has been received from the communications medium, the first processor processes the flow of data between a higher protocol-layer unit and said media-access control unit, the first processor receiving high-level data units from the higher protocol-layer unit and generating outgoing MAC protocol-data units therefrom to be sent to said media-access control unit, the first processor assigning connection identifiers to each outgoing MAC protocol-data unit, said media-access control unit comprising: a connection port adapted to couple to the first processor; a second processor that receives outgoing MAC protocol-data units generated by the first processor from the connection port and generates outgoing FEC blocks therefrom for outputting to the input port of the physical-layer control unit, the second processor having an instruction execution unit, an instruction memory, a data memory, an output port to provide outgoing FEC blocks to the physical-layer control unit, and an input port to receive incoming FEC blocks from the physical-layer control unit, wherein the second processor is adapted to generate incoming MAC protocol-data units from incoming FEC blocks received at its input port and to output them on the connection port; wherein the media-access control unit is configured to process a first type of MAC protocol-data unit that comprises at least a header and payload, the header comprising at least a type field, a connection identifier field, and a header-check sequence field and wherein the second processor encrypts the outgoing MAC protocol-data unit of the first type with an encryption key.