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US 2018/0322080 A1Published application
Devices and methods for prioritizing transmission of events on serial communication links
AssigneeMicrochip Technology Incorporated
InventorsMorten Werner Lund, Odd Magne Reitan, Lloyd Clark
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present disclosure relates generally to serial communication links and, more specifically, to events communicated on serial communication links and the timing of those events. The events may be communicated according to a prioritization process.
Claims16
A method of prioritizing events, comprising:
- delaying two or more events, each event delayed for at least a delay time corresponding to a uniform delay;
- preventing additional frames from being started on a serial communication link while any of the two or more events is being delayed;
- transmitting an event frame corresponding to one of the two or more events with a highest priority after its corresponding delay time;
- holding events with a priority lower than the event frame being transmitted until after a corresponding delay time and no higher priority events are pending;
- and
- repeating the transmitting the event frame corresponding to a highest priority event until event frames have been transmitted for all of the two or more events;
- wherein the event frame includes event identifier bits indicating a frame being transmitted is an event frame and event bits indicating which event of the two or more events is being transmitted in the event frame.
4 more elements
A serial communication link transmitter, comprising:
- two or more delay circuits, each delay circuit configured for receiving an event occurrence corresponding to that delay circuit and delaying the event occurrence by a delay time corresponding to a frame time;
- and
- priority logic configured for:
- determining a priority order for two or more event occurrences;
- preventing additional frames from being started while any of the two or more delay circuits is delaying its corresponding event;
- transmitting an event frame corresponding to a highest priority event after its corresponding delay time;
- holding event occurrences with a priority lower than the highest priority event in their corresponding delay circuit until after its corresponding delay time and no higher priority events are pending;
- and
- repeating the transmitting the event frame corresponding to the highest priority event until event frames have been transmitted for all of the two or more event occurrences;
- wherein the event frame includes event identifier bits indicating a frame being transmitted is an event frame and event bits indicating which event of the two or more event occurrences is being transmitted in the event frame.
7 more elements
A serial communication link transmitter, comprising:
- priority logic comprising two or more priority modules corresponding to two or more event indicators, each priority module comprising:
- a shift register for shifting the event indicator by a number of shifts equal to a number of bits in a frame time;
- logic to indicate a first pending event if any bit in the shift register is asserted;
- logic for holding the shift register from shifting if there is another pending event in a higher priority module;
- and
- logic for indicating a first pending event is ready to transmit if the first pending event has reached the end of the shift register and there are no pending events in higher priority modules;
- transmission circuitry configured for sending an event frame, wherein the transmission circuitry is configured to include in the event frame, event bits indicating which event of the two or more event indicators is being transmitted and event identifier bits indicating the frame being transmitted is an event frame.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.