JPH1196012A - Distributed controller - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To detect the malfunction of boot processing due to software processing by storing plural pieces of flag information provided at the time point of various processing ends in the boot processing in a main storage circuit and comparing them with reference information previously stored in the storage circuit. SOLUTION: When series of boot processing are finished, a control circuit 1 reads the reference information previously stored in a storage circuit 1 as shown by 'G' and compares it with series of flag information stored to a main storage circuit 3. When plural pieces of flag information stored to the main storage circuit 3 are coincident with the reference information in the storage circuit 2, it is discriminated all the series of boot processing are normally finished. When both the information are not coincident, on the other hand, any malfunction occurs in the boot processing so that the control circuit 1 displays such a state and stops operation. The reference information previously stored in the storage circuit 2 is made different corresponding to the contents of boot processing as well, and the different reference information corresponding to the boot processing on a control side and a standby side is stored in the storage circuit 2.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] 1. Field of the Invention [0002] The present invention relates to a distributed control device, and more particularly, to a distributed control device capable of improving reliability at boot time.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a conventional distributed control device, a sum check and a parity check are performed at boot time to prevent a read error of a boot program stored in a storage circuit such as a ROM.

Further, these parity check functions and the like have been realized by hardware of a CPU card.

As a result, it is possible to prevent the boot process from malfunctioning due to a read error of the boot program at the time of booting.

[0005]

However, although the detection of the read error of the boot program by the hardware at the time of booting is sure, it is necessary to detect the error not by the hardware but by the software processing due to the problem of cost reduction. There was a problem. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to realize a distributed control device capable of detecting a malfunction of a boot process by software processing.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, according to a first aspect of the present invention, in a distributed control device,
A main storage circuit, a storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information, and a plurality of flag information obtained during the process of reading the boot program and performing a boot process and storing the boot program in the main storage circuit; A control circuit for comparing the reference information with the plurality of pieces of flag information to detect a malfunction of the boot process.

In order to achieve the above object, according to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, a plurality of pieces of flag information obtained at the end of a plurality of processes constituting the boot process are stored in the main storage. It is characterized by being stored in a circuit.

In order to achieve the above object, according to a third aspect of the present invention, in the second aspect of the present invention, one of the plurality of processes constituting the boot process is a control circuit initialization process. It is assumed that.

In order to achieve the above object, according to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the second aspect of the present invention, one of the plurality of processes constituting the boot process is a main memory circuit initialization process. It is a feature.

In order to achieve the above object, a fifth aspect of the present invention is characterized in that in the second aspect of the present invention, one of the plurality of processes constituting the boot process is a self-diagnosis process. Things.

In order to achieve the above object, a sixth aspect of the present invention is characterized in that in the first aspect of the present invention, a ROM is used as the storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information. is there.

According to a seventh aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, an EEPROM is provided as the storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information.
M is used.

In order to achieve the above object, an eighth aspect of the present invention is characterized in that in the first aspect of the present invention, a flash memory is used as the storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information. It is.

According to a ninth aspect of the present invention, in the ninth aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect of the present invention, the storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information includes a nonvolatile R
It is characterized by using AM.

In order to achieve the above object, in a tenth aspect of the present invention, in the second aspect of the present invention, a difference between the plurality of pieces of flag information and the reference information is extracted to obtain the plurality of pieces of flag information. It is characterized by analyzing where an abnormality has occurred.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram showing one embodiment of a part of the distributed control device according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, 1 is a control circuit, 2 is a storage circuit such as a ROM for storing a boot program, and 3 is a main storage circuit. The input and output of the control circuit 1 are connected to the storage circuit 2 and the main storage circuit, respectively.

Here, the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 will be described. The control circuit 1 sequentially reads out the boot program from the storage circuit 2 and performs processing in functional units.

For example, the control circuit 1 performs a control circuit initialization process as shown by "a" in FIG. 1 and a main storage circuit initialization process as shown by "b" in FIG. 1 based on the read boot program. The self-diagnosis processing and the like are sequentially performed as shown by "C" in FIG.

The control circuit 1 stores flag information obtained at the end of such various processes in the main storage circuit 3.

For example, the flag information is specifically 1-bit data, and the control circuit initialization processing, the main storage circuit initialization processing, and the self-diagnosis processing indicated by "a", "b", and "c" in FIG. At the end of the processing of "d", "e" and "e" in FIG.
The bits of the main storage circuit 2 indicated by "f" are sequentially set to "1".

When a series of boot processes is completed, the control circuit 1 reads out the reference information stored in advance in the storage circuit 2 indicated by "G" in FIG. Compare with information.

The reference information is a plurality of pieces of flag information obtained when all the boot processes are completed normally, and is stored in the storage circuit 2 in advance according to the contents of the boot process in the control circuit 1 based on the boot program. .

Therefore, if the plurality of pieces of flag information stored in the main storage circuit 3 match the reference information in the storage circuit 2,
The control circuit 1 starts the next process because all of the series of boot processes have been completed normally.

On the other hand, if they do not match, a malfunction of the boot process has occurred, and the control circuit 1 displays a message to that effect and stops the operation.

As a result, a plurality of pieces of flag information obtained at the end of various processes of the boot process are stored in the main storage circuit 3, and are compared with reference information stored in the storage circuit 2 in advance. It becomes possible to detect a malfunction of the boot process.

The operation of the embodiment shown in FIG. 1 will be described more specifically with reference to FIG. FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a boot process in the control circuit 1.

In the distributed control apparatus, the control side or the standby side may be at the start of the distributed control apparatus, and the content of the boot process differs.

For example, in the case of the control side, the I
It is necessary to initialize the definitions of the contacts for the / O module. On the other hand, in the case of the standby side, "APC ( All Program Copy) ”processing must be performed.

For this reason, the reference information stored in the storage circuit 2 in advance is also different depending on the contents of the different boot processes, and the different reference information corresponding to the boot processes on the control side and the standby side is stored in the storage circuit 2. Have been.

In FIG. 2A, the control circuit 1 reads a boot program from the storage circuit 2, the control circuit 1 performs control circuit initialization processing based on the read boot program, and mainly stores flag information obtained at the end of the processing. It is stored in the storage circuit 3.

In FIG. 2B, the control circuit 1 reads a boot program from the storage circuit 2, the control circuit 1 performs a main storage circuit initialization process based on the read boot program, and stores flag information obtained at the end of the process. It is stored in the main storage circuit 3.

In FIG. 2C, the control circuit 1 reads a boot program from the storage circuit 2, and the control circuit 1 performs a self-diagnosis process based on the read boot program.
The flag information obtained at the end of the processing is stored in the main storage circuit 3.

In FIG. 2D, the control circuit 1 determines whether to start up as a control side or to stand up as a standby side.

FIG. 2 shows a case where the control side starts up.
In (e), the control circuit 1 reads a boot program from the storage circuit 2, and the control circuit 1 performs an I / O module initialization process based on the read boot program.
The flag information obtained at the end of the processing is stored in the main storage circuit 3.

In FIG. 2F, the control circuit 1 compares a plurality of pieces of flag information stored in the main storage circuit 3 with reference information stored in the storage circuit 2 when the control starts up.

If the two match, the next processing as the control side is performed in FIG. 2 (g). If the two do not match, it is determined that a malfunction of the boot processing has occurred, and the control circuit shown in FIG. 1 stops its operation.

On the other hand, in the case of starting up as a standby side in FIG. 2D, in FIG. 2I, the control circuit 1 reads a boot program from the storage circuit 2, and the control circuit 1 performs an APC process based on the read boot program. ,
The flag information obtained at the end of the processing is stored in the main storage circuit 3.

Then, in FIG. 2 (j), the control circuit 1 compares a plurality of pieces of flag information stored in the main storage circuit 3 with reference information stored in the storage circuit 2 when starting up on the standby side.

If the two match, the next processing as the standby side is performed in FIG. 2 (k). If the two do not match, it is determined that a malfunction in the boot processing has occurred, and the control circuit shown in FIG. 1 stops its operation.

As a result, a plurality of pieces of flag information obtained at the end of various types of boot processing are stored in the main storage circuit 3 and compared with reference information stored in the storage circuit 2 in advance, so that software processing can be performed. It becomes possible to detect a malfunction of the boot process.

Although the ROM is exemplified as the storage circuit for storing the boot program, an EEPROM, a flash memory, a non-volatile RAM, a magnetic bubble memory, a storage device capable of holding data even when power is not supplied, and the like. A storage device that can be backed up by a built-in battery may be used.

The flag information stored in the main storage circuit 3 at the end of various processes may be one bit or plural bits.

Further, when a malfunction of the boot process is detected, it is possible to analyze at which point the boot process has failed by extracting the difference between the flag information and the reference information.

For example, in FIG.
Is different from the reference information, it can be specified that a malfunction has occurred in the main memory circuit initialization processing.

In addition, from the viewpoint of analysis, the flag information is stored at the end of the various processes, but may be at any time or at the time of dividing the various processes into a plurality of processes.

[0047]

As is apparent from the above description,
According to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained. A plurality of pieces of flag information obtained at the end of various processes of the boot process are stored in the main storage circuit and are compared with reference information stored in the storage circuit in advance, thereby detecting a malfunction of the boot process by software processing. A distributed control device capable of performing the above can be realized.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram showing one embodiment of a part of a distributed control device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a boot process in a control circuit.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 control circuit 2 storage circuit 3 main storage circuit

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. A distributed control device, comprising: a main storage circuit; a storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information; and performing a boot process by reading the boot program and storing a plurality of flag information obtained during the process. A distributed control device, comprising: a control circuit that is stored in a storage circuit and that compares the reference information and the plurality of flag information after boot processing is completed to detect a malfunction of the boot processing. 2. The distributed control apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a plurality of pieces of flag information obtained at the end of the plurality of processes constituting the boot process are stored in the main storage circuit. 3. The distributed control device according to claim 2, wherein one of the plurality of processes constituting the boot process is a control circuit initialization process. 4. The distributed control device according to claim 2, wherein one of the plurality of processes constituting the boot process is a main memory circuit initialization process. 5. The distributed control device according to claim 2, wherein one of the plurality of processes constituting the boot process is a self-diagnosis process. 6. The distributed control device according to claim 1, wherein a ROM is used as said storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information. 7. The distributed control device according to claim 1, wherein an EEPROM is used as said storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information. 8. The distributed control device according to claim 1, wherein a flash memory is used as said storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information. 9. The distributed control device according to claim 1, wherein a nonvolatile RAM is used as said storage circuit for storing a boot program and reference information. 10. The apparatus according to claim 2, wherein a difference between said plurality of flag information and said reference information is extracted, and analysis is made as to where in said plurality of flag information an abnormality has occurred. Distributed control device.