Patent ID: 7940808

Claim:
A communications system comprising: a physical layer device (PLD) comprising a PLD send interface including PLD parallel information outputs and at least one PLD control output, and a PLD receive interface including PLD parallel information inputs and at least one PLD control input; a logical link layer device (LLD) comprising an LLD receive interface including LLD parallel information inputs, a deskewer for aligning received parallel information symbol strings, and at least one LLD control input, and an LLD send interface including LLD parallel information outputs and at least one LLD control output; and parallel communications channels connecting said PLD information outputs to respective LLD information inputs, connecting said LLD information outputs to respective PLD information inputs, connecting said at least one PLD control output to a respective at least one LLD control input, and connecting said at least one LLD control outputs to a respective at least one PLD control input; said PLD send interface and said LLD send interface being substantially identical, and said PLD receive interface and said LLD receive interface being substantially identical thereby permitting said PLD and said LLD to operate in a push-push configuration.