US Patent 11397701 Retimer mechanisms for in-band link management

A retimer apparatus can include a receiver circuit implemented at least partially in hardware; a configuration register comprising a link management bit set, and one or more bit fields for link management bits indicating link management information; bit stream logic implemented at least partially in hardware to encode an ordered set (OS) with one or more link management bits from the configuration register; and a transmitter circuit implemented at least partially in hardware to transmit OS with the one or more link management bits across a link.