A Simulation Study of Energy-Efficient Ethernet With Two Modes of Low-Power Operation

Section 78.1.3 of the IEEE 802.3bj-2014 standard defines two modes of low-power idle (LPI) operation for the physical layers of energy-efficient ethernet (EEE) links that work at a speed of 40 Gb/s and higher: Fast Wake and Deep Sleep. In this letter, it is shown by simulation that combining two modes of low(er)-power operation in EEE links can result in significant savings with a reasonable performance tradeoff that may not be achievable with a single mode of LPI, as is the case for 10 Gb/s links and lower.