Assembly of integrated circuit modules and method for identifying the modules

An assembly comprising a carrier substrate and on the substrate one or more groups of interconnected integrated circuit modules, each group comprising a first module, a last module, and one or more intermediate modules, wherein each module comprises:

• a clock connection;
• a logic circuit connected to the clock connection and provided with a counter for counting the pulses of a clock signal transmitted through the clock connection;
• at least an input port and at least an output port , the input and output ports being coupled to the logic circuit, in such a manner that a logic state of the input port can be read by the circuit and a logic state of the output port can be driven by the circuit;
• and
• a memory for storing at least an identifier of the module,
• wherein for each group of modules:
• the carrier substrate comprises circuitry for accessing the input port of the first module of the group;
• the clock connections are interconnected to form a single connection from the first module to the last module of the group;
• except for the last module of the group, the output port on each module is directly connected to the input port of a module adjacent to it, so that the group of modules forms a chain of sequentially interconnected modules;
• the logic circuits are configured so that they are capable of driving the output ports of their respective modules to a predefined logic state;
• and
• the circuits are further configured to monitor the logic state of the input and output ports of the respective modules at consecutive pulses of the clock signal, and to attribute the identifier sequentially for the chain of modules, on the basis of the counter value, and depending on the detected logic state of the input port and output port.