An apparatus is provided that includes a set of registers, and an interface of a computing block. The computing block includes one of a physical layer block or a media access control layer block. The interface includes one or more pins to transmit asynchronous signals, one or more pins to receive asynchronous signals, and a set of pins to communicate particular signals to access the set of registers, where a set of control and status signals of a defined interface are mapped to respective bits of the set of registers.