Patent ID: 8208449

Claim:
A communication device including a multi-mode WLAN/PAN MAC (Wireless Local Area Network/Personal Area Network Medium Access Controller), the communication device comprising: a PHY (PHYsical layer) receiver; and a MAC (Medium Access Controller) that is directly coupled to the PHY receiver at a MAC/PHY interface; and wherein: the MAC includes at least two functional blocks to support at least two different operational modes corresponding to at least two different communication system types in which the communication device may operate such that each of the at least two functional blocks performs a separate MAC operation in accordance with a separate one of the at least two different operational modes; the PHY receiver includes a first PHY receiver portion and a second PHY receiver portion; the first PHY receiver portion is operative to process first received signals from other communication devices within a first of the at least two different communication system types and is operative to provide the processed first received signals to the MAC; the second PHY receiver portion is operative to process second received signals from other communication devices within a second of the at least two different communication system types and is operative to provide the processed second received signals to the MAC; the communication device is operative simultaneously to receive beacons, that are simultaneously broadcast from an AP (Access Point), corresponding to each of the at least two different operational modes; and the communication device is operative simultaneously to monitor the beacons corresponding to each of the at least two different operational modes.