Patent ID: 8004961

Claim:
A multi-port Ethernet physical layer system comprising: a first Ethernet Media Access Control (MAC) interface and a second Ethernet MAC interface, wherein the first and second Ethernet MAC interfaces are configured to be simultaneously operational; a physical layer (PHY) configured to independently and dynamically map data traffic using datapath routing logic in order to route data to the first and second Ethernet MAC interfaces, wherein the datapath routing logic is configured to dynamically select an operating mode for the first and second Ethernet MAC interfaces; a first port configured to be coupled to the first and second Ethernet MAC interfaces, wherein the first port is configured to operate in a broadcast transmit mode; and a second port configured to be coupled to the first and second Ethernet MAC interfaces, wherein the second port is configured to operate in the broadcast transmit mode; wherein the datapath routing logic is configured to (i) control coupling of a first receive output for the first port and a first transmit input for the first port independently of each other and (ii) control coupling of a second receive output for the second port and a second transmit input for the second port independently of each other; and wherein the datapath routing logic is configured, in a specified mode, to couple the first receive output for the first port to a first receive data connection for the first Ethernet MAC interface and to the second transmit input for the second port.