Patent ID: 8136083

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: an integrated circuit substrate; a plurality of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) blocks disposed on the integrated circuit substrate, wherein the plurality of ASIC blocks includes: two or more ASIC front-end input/output function blocks configured to support respective, mutually-exclusive communication protocols, wherein the apparatus is configured to communicate using a selected one of the communication protocols; and two or more ASIC back-end input/output function blocks configured to support the respective, mutually-exclusive communication protocols; and a logic unit disposed on the integrated circuit substrate, wherein the logic unit is programmable to: enable a particular one of the two or more ASIC front-end input/output function blocks and a particular one of the two or more ASIC back-end input/output function blocks, wherein the enabled ASIC front-end input/output function block and the enabled ASIC back-end input/output function block are configured to support the selected communication protocol; and disable remaining ones of the two or more ASIC front-end input/output function blocks and remaining ones of the two or more ASIC back-end input/output function blocks that are configured to support communication protocols that are distinct from the selected communication protocol.