Patent ID: 8717892

Claim:
A programmable channel-swap crossbar switch for swapping signal flow from one channel to another within an Ethernet physical layer device (PHY), the programmable channel-swap crossbar switch comprising: two or more programmed multiplexers, each multiplexer configured to receive two or more input signals and to select which one of the two or more input signals to pass to a mapped corresponding channel, such that a first input signal associated with a first channel can be swapped to a second channel as operating conditions necessitate; wherein all of the two or more input signals received at each multiplexer of the two or more programmed multiplexers are either transmit input signals having a transmit data flow direction or receive input signals having a receive data flow direction; and wherein a first of the two or more programmed multiplexers is configured to select from only the transmit input signals to provide the mapped corresponding channel, and wherein a second of the two or more programmed multiplexers is configured to select from only the receive input signals to the mapped corresponding channel.