Patent ID: 7054947

Claim:
An auto-negotiation (AN) method for establishing a high speed link between a first transmitting device and a second transmitting device, comprising the steps of: (a) initializing a transmission state machine and a reception state machine of the first and the second transmitting devices; (b) transmitting and receiving a base page that indicates a transmission capability between the first and the second transmitting devices; (c) transmitting and receiving a message page that indicates a 1000 Mbps transmission capability between the first and the second transmitting devices and a specific state; (d) transmitting and receiving a first unformatted page that indicates transmitting speeds, modes, and port types of the first and the second transmitting devices; (e) determining whether a master and a slave can be determined from among the first and the second transmitting devices based upon the first unformatted page; (f) transmitting and receiving a null page after the first unformatted page, when the master and the slave can be determined; and (g) establishing the high speed link between the first and the second transmitting devices and ending the AN method, upon transmitting and receiving the null page, wherein in the step (e), the master and the slave can be determined when the port types of the first and the second transmitting devices are different from each other.