The log 181. PEAC w18 is a mixed bag, there are good things but overall, the less good aspects stick.

Given the great performance bump introduced by the Hammer circuit, I wonder why I still keep the gPEAC layer. There are two reasons: it's the best scrambler, and though the very long periods are great, more importantly it can't be "crashed" (which is a flaw of LFSRs).

At a higher level, the system is stronger because it associates two circuits of different nature.

But what if?

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Removing gPEAC removes the scrambler. Is it required ? Even though the miniPHY handles baseline wander (somehow, at least that's the expectation), and even if it uses a sort of convolutional error correction system, the spectrum still needs to be spread. Scrambling also helps a bit to increase error detection.

LFSRs don't work well, they suffer from easy cancellation. Using the Hammer on the send side would be much better (and it's very tempting) but cancellation remains, even though a wider Hammer could provide hidden states. But it wouldn't work. It probably wouldn't improve error detection, which is already maximised.