Patent ID: 7571271

Claim:
A method of handling data, comprising: at a transmitter: maintaining a plurality of transmitter data lane controllers in a power conservation state; receiving a bandwidth request for a transmission; based on said bandwidth request, selecting which of said plurality of data lanes are active data lanes for said transmission; waking up transmitter data lane controllers for said active data lanes; obtaining a pre-defined repeating sequence of said active data lanes; for each active data lane, receiving data words and timing said words through a buffer associated with said each active data lane; distributing words onto said active data lanes from said each buffer in said pre-defined repeating sequence of said active data lanes; sending an indication of said active data lanes toward a receiver; at said receiver: maintaining a plurality of receive data lane controllers in a power conservation state; receiving said indication of which of said plurality of data lanes are active data lanes; waking up receive data lane controllers for said active data lanes for said transmission; obtaining said pre-defined repeating sequence of said active data lanes; for each active data lane, receiving data words of said transmission and timing said words through a buffer associated with said each active data lane; merging words onto a parallel bus from said each buffer in said pre-defined repeating sequence of said active data lanes; and after an end of said returning said data lane controllers to said power conservation state.