Patent ID: 7640370

Claim:
A physical layer device, comprising: a volatile memory for storing configuration information for the physical layer device; a first signal path comprising a first bridge for connecting the volatile memory and a system controller to communicate the configuration information for the physical layer device to the volatile memory; a second signal path comprising a second bridge for communicating the configuration information between the volatile memory and at least one non-volatile memory; a third signal path comprising a third bridge for reading and writing data between the at least one non-volatile memory and the system controller, bypassing the volatile memory; and a write-only controller for writing the configuration information of the physical layer device from the at least one non-volatile memory, wherein the first signal path and the second signal path are used when the entire content of the at least one non-volatile memory needs to be changed, and wherein the third signal path is used when only a few bytes in the at least one non-volatile memory need to be changed.