Patent ID: 7751442
Filing Date: 2010-07-06
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for communication using an 8B/10B code, the method comprising: receiving Ethernet data frames; transmitting 8B/10B code groups in a device-to-device interconnection to a destination device, the transmitted 8B/10B code groups including portions of the received Ethernet data frames; and inserting, by an inserting circuit, at least one control message encoded as one or more 8B/10B code groups among the transmitted 8B/10B code groups, wherein the at least one control message is transmitted in-band by inserting the at least one control message between an end of packet delimiter code group and an idle code group sequence and the control message specifies management data input/output (MDIO) register information, thereby allowing for at least one of access to MDIO registers at the destination device, capability to specify read and/or write access to a specific MDIO register at the destination device, and capability to specify information to be written to an MDIO register at the destination device.