Patent ID: 8472351

Claim:
A physical layer circuit, comprising: a Fast Ethernet physical layer module implementing a physical layer specification of a Fast Ethernet communication standard; a hybrid circuit connected to the Fast Ethernet physical layer module using a first twisted-pair wire and a second twisted-pair wire and configured to process transmit and receive HDMI Ethernet channel (HEC) signals concurrently transported over a third twisted-pair wire joining transmit signals transported over the second twisted-pair and receive signals transported over the first twisted-pair wire to be concurrently transported over the third twisted-pair wire; and separating receive and transmit signals traveled over the third twisted-pair wire to be transported over the first twisted-pair wire and the second twisted-pair wire respectively; a switch for bypassing the hybrid circuit; and a controller for controlling the operation the hybrid circuit and the switch according to the operating mode of the physical layer circuit, wherein the operation mode of the physical layer circuit is any one of a Fast Ethernet and a HEC.