Device identification method for systems having multiple device branches
AssigneeCypress Semiconductor Corporation
InventorsDavid V. James, Jagadeesan Rajamanickam
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for assigning chip identification (ID) values is disclosed. Unique chip ID values may be assigned to chips (106-0 to 106-5) in a system (100) having multiple branches (112-0 and 112-1). After chip IDs have been assigned to chips of a first branch (112-0) a command processing system (104) may issue an end of branch indication. Chip IDs may then be assigned to chips of a next branch (112-1).
Claims20
A method of acknowledging commands received by an integrated circuit device chip, comprising the steps of:
- in a special operation branching mode:
- forwarding an assign ID command for assigning a chip identification value with a first type acknowledgement via a first chip output connection, and
- forwarding the assign ID command with a second type acknowledgement via a second chip output connection.
A method for assigning chip identifiers in a multi-chip content addressable memory (CAM) system, comprising the steps of:
- assigning a highest order chip identifier to all CAM chips in the system;
- configuring a current lowest order chip in the system having the highest order chip identifier to accept a lowest order chip identifier as its new chip identifier;
- broadcasting the lowest order chip identifier value to all CAM chips in the system;
- and
- repeating the configuring and broadcasting steps for an incremental chip identifier value until each CAM chip in the system has a unique chip identifier value.
A method of assigning chip identification (ID) values to a system that includes a plurality of CAM devices arranged into branches, comprising the steps of:
- returning a branch end response in response to an assign a chip identification (ID) command assigning a chip ID to a last CAM device of one of the plurality of branches.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.