Dear support,
We are developing a specific streaming protocol and we would like to use an ethernet phy as a transceiver. We have a limitation by hardware, we can use only a single differential pair what unsupported by 100base-tx.
Our solution would be the following:
-connect the phys RX pins together, terminate TX pins.
-control the data flow by manual MDIX configuration
-disable autonegotion
We made a board for testing and the receiver is working fine, the data was captured properly. But the transmitter part does not send any data (except idle bytes) if there is no active link.
With only one differential pair, only one of the phy will have detected link. The transmitter should send data even if there is no link.
My question is,
-Can I set some register to send data even if there is no link?
-Can I imitate a link?
-Is the link mandatory for transmission? For the receiver is understandable because of the scrambler, but for the transmitter why?