Patent ID: 7949782

Claim:
A transceiver between an Ethernet media access control (MAC) layer device and a 10 Gb/s Ethernet link, comprising: a 10 Gigabit attachment unit interface (XAUI) for providing a connection between the transceiver and the Ethernet media access control (MAC) layer device; a media dependent interface (MDI) for providing the 10 Gb/s Ethernet link to the transceiver; and a physical coding sublayer (PCS) extension circuit for implementing an extended link monitoring channel for said link for communicating link related information during Inter Packet Gaps (IPG) between user data packets, the PCS extension circuit comprising a processor configured with processor-executable instructions to perform operations comprising: initializing the extended link monitoring channel by determining Inter Packet Gaps (IPGs) between blocks of user data, substituting selected IPG with ping blocks that are control blocks to be sent to a far end such that only each (N 1 +1)-th idle block is substituted with the ping block until a total of Nx ping blocks has been substituted, and receiving ping blocks from the far end such that at least N R ping blocks are separated by no more than N J idle blocks, N R are less or equal to N X , and N J are equal to or greater than N J , wherein N J =16, N X =16, N R =8, N J =32; communicating link monitoring information over the extended link monitoring channel by determining Inter Packet Gaps (IPG) between blocks of user data, and substituting, for the extended link monitoring channel, selected Inter Packet Gaps (IPG) with extended link monitoring blocks including blocks to carry link related information and control blocks constructed using selected reserved codes of IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard; and splitting the extended link monitoring channel by multiplexing a number of virtual link monitoring channels over the same link at the physical layer, each of the virtual link monitoring channels intended for communicating a different type of the link related information.