Apparatus and method for performing serial communication between master and slave devices
AssigneeTokyo Electron Limited
InventorsTeruo Asakawa, Akiyoshi Shoujima, Shigeru Ishizawa
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Abstract
A communication method and apparatus for performing communication between a master device and a plurality of slave devices, prepares, in the master device, the address data of a destination and operation command data to be transmitted to the destination, serially transmits the address data and the operation command data to the plurality of slave devices via the communication path, and executes an operation in accordance with the operation command data in at least one of the slave devices which is designated by the address data. The above operations are all performed in one bus cycle of the master side controller.
Claims25
A communication method for performing communication between a master device and a plurality of slave devices, which comprises the steps of:
- preparing, in the master device, transmission data including at least address data of a destination and operation command data to be transmitted to the destination, in a form of bit serial data;
- converting the bit serial data to line signals corresponding to each of the address data and the operation command data to send at least one of the line signals to at least one of a plurality of parallel coded lines at each of a plurality of predetermined time intervals;
- de-converting, in at least one of the slave devices, the line signals on the coded lines to the bit serial data;
- decoding the bit serial data to the transmission data including address data and operation command data;
- and
- executing at least one of data writing and reading in at least one of the slave devices corresponding to the address data, in accordance with the operation command data,
- wherein said steps are completed within one bus cycle of the master device.
A communication apparatus comprising:
- a communication path including parallel coded lines;
- a master side controller for preparing transmission data including at least address data of a destination and operation command data to be transmitted to the destination in a form of bit serial data;
- a master side interface, connected to the master side controller, for converting the bit serial data to line signals corresponding to each of the address data and the operation command data supplied from the master side controller to send at least one of the line signals to at least one of a plurality of parallel coded lines at each of a plurality of predetermined time intervals, said plurality of parallel coded lines being connected to the master side interface;
- and
- a plurality of slave side controllers each connected to the master side interface via the parallel coded lines and each including a de-converter for de-converting the line signals to the bit serial data, a decoder for decoding the bit serial data to the address data and operation command data, and means for executing at least one of message data writing and reading in accordance with the operation command data,
- wherein operations of the master side controller, the master side interface and the slave side controllers are performed within one bus cycle of the master side controller.
A method of encoding and decoding transmission data transmitted between a master device and at least one slave device comprising the steps of:
- converting the transmission data to two-bit serial data;
- converting at least one of the two-bit serial data to at least one of four line signals at each of a plurality of predetermined time intervals, to send at least one of the four line signals to at least one of four coded lines at each of said plurality of predetermined time intervals, the four coded lines being associated with four binary codes of 1 1, 1 0, 0 1 and 0 0, respectively;
- detecting rising and falling levels of the line signals for each of the four coded lines to read out binary codes of the coded lines in response to the rising and falling levels of the line signals;
- decoding the binary codes of the coded lines to provide decoded data corresponding to the two-bit serial data;
- and
- reconstructing the transmission data from the decoded data.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.