Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F11/00—Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring
  • G06F11/22—Detection or location of defective computer hardware by testing during standby operation or during idle time, e.g. start-up testing
  • G06F11/2289—Detection or location of defective computer hardware by testing during standby operation or during idle time, e.g. start-up testing by configuration test
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F13/00—Interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units
  • G06F13/14—Handling requests for interconnection or transfer
  • G06F13/20—Handling requests for interconnection or transfer for access to input/output bus
  • G06F13/28—Handling requests for interconnection or transfer for access to input/output bus using burst mode transfer, e.g. direct memory access DMA, cycle steal
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F13/00—Interconnection of, or transfer of information or other signals between, memories, input/output devices or central processing units
  • G06F13/38—Information transfer, e.g. on bus
  • G06F13/382—Information transfer, e.g. on bus using universal interface adapter
  • G06F13/385—Information transfer, e.g. on bus using universal interface adapter for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F9/00—Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units
  • G06F9/06—Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units using stored programs, i.e. using an internal store of processing equipment to receive or retain programs
  • G06F9/44—Arrangements for executing specific programs
  • G06F9/4401—Bootstrapping
  • G06F9/4411—Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F9/00—Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units
  • G06F9/06—Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units using stored programs, i.e. using an internal store of processing equipment to receive or retain programs
  • G06F9/44—Arrangements for executing specific programs
  • G06F9/445—Program loading or initiating
  • G06F9/44505—Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING OR CALCULATING; COUNTING
  • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
  • G06F9/00—Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units
  • G06F9/06—Arrangements for program control, e.g. control units using stored programs, i.e. using an internal store of processing equipment to receive or retain programs
  • G06F9/44—Arrangements for executing specific programs
  • G06F9/448—Execution paradigms, e.g. implementations of programming paradigms
  • G06F9/4498—Finite state machines
• • Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
  • Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
  • Y02D—CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES [ICT], I.E. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AIMING AT THE REDUCTION OF THEIR OWN ENERGY USE
  • Y02D10/00—Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Definitions

• the present invention relates to configuration and control of hardware subsystems.
• hardware subsystems become increasingly complex.
• Such subsystems typically require initialization at start up and configuration or reconfiguration during subsequent operation.
• Control of the subsystem during operation may also entail configuration or reconfiguration.
• Such initialization, configuration, reconfiguration and control are presently accomplished through system programming, which may be embodied in hardware, firmware or software.
• system programming is laborious, error prone and, from a programming perspective, unsafe.
• the system programmer must first read a detailed specification of the hardware subsystem. This specification is often very large and may be unclear, contradictory, out-of-date or erroneous.
• the programmer typically encodes a Hardware Abstraction Language that translates numerous registers and defined bits referred to in the specification into alphanumeric descriptions that permit programmers to configure and control the hardware subsystem with names instead of digits. There are typically no tools to aid in this task.
• construction of the Hardware Abstraction Language largely involves a laborious process of substitution that is unappealing to many programmers and hence error-prone.
• configuration of a hardware subsystem is accomplished by providing in hardware a configuration controller including a controller portion and a storage portion storing configuration parameters.
• the configuration controller is activated, for example in response to a Configuration/Control ID, and thereupon performs configuration of the hardware subsystem, including storing at least one configuration parameter in a register of the hardware subsystem.
• the configuration controller hardware and storage are embedded within the hardware subsystem to be configured or controlled.
• the configuration/control functionality is thus "encapsulated" within the hardware subsystem itself such that the system programmer need not be concerned with details of the functionality.
• the configuration controller may take the form of a state machine, for example.
• a hardware subsystem may assume different configurations at different times during operation of the system.
• multiple Configuration/Control IDs may be provided, each Configuration/Control ID corresponding to a particular configuration.
• Figure 1 is a circuit diagram of a system using encapsulated hardware configuration/control.
• the system is an electronic system that may be of any of various forms, including for example, an electronic chassis, a circuit board, a multi-chip module or other module, a "System-On-a-Chip” (SOC) integrated circuit or other integrated circuit, etc.
• the system is assumed to include a processor 101 and a system bus 103.
• the system bus may connect to other busses (not shown) using one or more bus bridge interfaces as necessary.
• various subsystems are connected to the system bus, including a subsystem 110 to be configured or controlled.
• a subsystem 110 to be configured or controlled.
• one such typical subsystem might be a USB controller, for example.
• Other typical subsystems might include, for example, an SDRAM controller, a PLL/clock subsystem block, etc.
• the subsystem 110 to be configured or controlled is illustrated in simplified form as including various hardware registers 111 and including in addition a Configuration/Control State Machine 113 and associated memory 115.
• the state machine 113 may be patterned after a complex instruction set processor.
• the memory 115 will typically be read-only.
• the Configuration/Control State Machine 113 is in communication with the system bus, and the memory 115 is in communication with various registers, e.g., via a subsystem bus 117.
• the width of the memory 115 matches the width of the subsystem bus 117.
• a single simple Configuration/Control ID is passed from the processor 101 to the Configuration/Control State Machine 113, which may appear to system software simply as a register.
• the Configuration/Control State Machine 113 responds to the Configuration/Control ID by causing one or more write cycles to the subsystem's register set 111 to be performed.
• the system programmer may be oblivious to the inner workings of the Configuration/Control State Machine 113.
• Configuration/Control IDs may be used to designate different sets of configuration data or different control operations.
• One example of the use of multiple Configuration/Control IDs for a single subsystem is a USB (Universal Serial Bus) block in which particular ports (i.e., endpoints) can operate in Control, Interrupt, Isochronous or Bulk mode.
• a different Configuration/Control ID is assigned to each mode.
• the Configuration/Control State Machine 113 responds to the corresponding Configuration/Control ID to write to potentially a large number of registers (e.g., endpoint enable register, endpoint interrupt register, DMA control register, etc.) without the significant potential for error encountered in the prior art approach.
• a Configuration/Control ID may enable or disable various subsystem hardware options.
• a control function might be to enable or disable automatic re-initialization of the DMA controller after a USB packet has been successfully received. (When this option is enabled, the DMA function is ready to accept the next packet without software intervention.)
• a Configuration/Control LD corresponding to Control mode would typically enable this option, whereas a Configuration/Control ID corresponding to Bulk mode typically would not.
• Control IDs may be used to access certain specific inner workings of a subsystem. For example, in a USB subsystem, one function that is controlled by the software is to put the subsystem into Suspend Mode in order to reduce power when there is no USB bus traffic. A single unique Control ID may be assigned to this function. Software would simply write this ID to the subsystem in order to enable this mode. The actual register and the particular bit in the register that performs this function would be hidden from view (i.e. encapsulated). An added benefit of this scheme is that a complete redesign to the USB block could be implemented without change to the software.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Software Systems (AREA)
• Quality & Reliability (AREA)
• Computer Security & Cryptography (AREA)
• Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
• Logic Circuits (AREA)
• Stored Programmes (AREA)
• Information Transfer Systems (AREA)
• Executing Machine-Instructions (AREA)
• Advance Control (AREA)

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Publications (2)

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• 2003
  • 2003-12-17 WO PCT/IB2003/006008 patent/WO2004055668A2/en not_active Ceased
  • 2003-12-17 JP JP2004560121A patent/JP2006510966A/ja not_active Withdrawn
  • 2003-12-17 EP EP03768034A patent/EP1576468A3/en not_active Ceased
  • 2003-12-17 US US10/538,458 patent/US7788416B2/en active Active
  • 2003-12-17 AU AU2003292455A patent/AU2003292455A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2003-12-17 CN CNB2003801066519A patent/CN100357890C/zh not_active Expired - Fee Related

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