Patent ID: 11899945
Assignee: SILICON MOTION, INC.
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A method for performing communications specification version control of a memory device in a predetermined communications architecture with aid of compatibility management, the method being applied to a memory controller of the memory device, the memory device comprising the memory controller and a non-volatile (NV) memory, the NV memory comprising at least one NV memory element, the method comprising:
utilizing the memory controller to receive a first command from a host device through a transmission interface circuit of the memory controller;
utilizing the memory controller to execute a device-side compatibility management procedure of a compatibility management function to detect whether the host device conforms to any version of multiple predetermined versions of a predetermined communications specification according to the first command to generate a detection result, and selectively switch from one firmware version to another firmware version according to the detection result; and
utilizing the memory controller to send a first response to the host device through the transmission interface circuit, wherein the first response is sent to the host device in response to the first command;
wherein the first command represents a first predetermined request which is implemented as a read descriptor request, wherein multiple fields of a predetermined format of the read descriptor request comprise:
a first field, for carrying a first predetermined value;
a flag field, for carrying at least one flag;
a task tag field, for carrying at least one task tag;
a first length field, for carrying a first length; and
a second length field, for carrying a second length; and

at least one other field reserved for at least one other purpose among the multiple fields is arranged to carry at least one parameter for indicating whether the host device conforms to the any version of the multiple predetermined versions of the predetermined communications specification.