High speed bridge controller adaptable to non-standard device configuration
AssigneeTexas Intruments Incorporated
InventorsBrian Tse Deng, Dinghui Richard Nie, Joseph M. Erickson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A bridge controller controls the data flow to/from a USB bus to/from an ATA/ATAPI drive, such as an ATA hard drive or ATAPI CD or DVD drive. The bridge controller has a state machine which receives the CBW in a background mode in real time as the packet is being transferred to the bridge controller. The state machine uses the CBW to set up the data transfer. The bridge controller also has a programmable processor which is coupled to the CBW once it is received in a buffer memory. The programmable processor makes changes in the set up of the receiving device for the transfer, if needed, and initiates the data transfer.
Claims20
A bridge controller for transferring data between a data storage device and a data utilization device, the bridge controller receiving a command information packet for controlling the data transfer, comprising:
- a state machine receiving command information in a background mode in real time as the packet is being transferred to the bridge controller, the state machine utilizing the command information to set up the receiving device for the data transfer;
- and
- a programmable processor coupled to the command information packet after the packet has been received, the processor making changes to the set up of the receiving device for the transfer, if needed, and then initiating the data transfer.
A USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge comprising:
- a physical layer receiving serial command data from the USB bus and converting the data to a parallel format;
- a transfer controller receiving the parallel data for transferring the data to a buffer memory;
- a state machine operating in background mode on the parallel data flowing through the transfer controller in real time to set up the ATA or ATAPI device for a data transfer;
- and
- a programmable processor coupled to the buffer memory and being interrupted after all command information has been received, to individually alter any set up data for the ATA or ATAPI device that is needed, and then initiating the data transfer.
A method of operating a USB to ATA or ATAPI bridge comprising:
- transferring command data from a data utilization device via a USB bus through a data transfer device to a buffer memory;
- operating a state machine in a background mode using data flowing through the data transfer device in real time to extract set up data and store the data to set up a data transfer;
- operating a programmable processor utilizing the data stored in the buffer memory to individually alter the command-related data for the ATA or ATAPI device that is needed;
- and
- initiating the data transfer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.