Patent ID: 8189774

Claim:
A media-access control processor for exchanging data with a physical-layer control unit, the physical-layer control unit interfacing with a communications medium, the media-access control processor comprising: a first output port to provide data to the physical-layer control unit; a first input port to receive data from the physical-layer control unit; a main processor adapted to provide data to the output port and to receive data from the input port; a CRC coprocessor adapted to generate a cyclic-redundancy-check from an input set of data bytes, the CRC coprocessor having an input to receive an input set of data bytes from the main processor and an output to provide a cyclic-redundancy-check value for the input set of data bytes to the main processor; and an HCS coprocessor adapted to generate a header-check sequences from an input header, the HCS coprocessor having an input to receive a plurality of bytes of a header from the main processor and an output to provide a header-check sequence therefor to the main processor.