Abstract:
An apparatus for and method of ensuring proper transfer of data between two registers. A device driver utilizes a clock signal as an enable input before data is transferred from one register to another. This prevents a misregistration of data when delays in propagation of the clock signal exceed delays in propagation of data signals. In alternate embodiments, provision is made for bidirectional transfer by ANDing the clock signal with directional control signals to produce the enable signal. There is also a provision for implementing the concepts of the invention in connection with a shared bus interface, and in a bidirectional interface in such a manner as to ensure a lack of bus contention.

Description:
BACKGROUND 
     The present invention pertains to the field of digital data transfer, and, more particularly, to an apparatus for and method of facilitating proper data transfer between two or more digital memory elements such as, for example, registers. 
     FIGS. 1(a) through 1(c) illustrate the process of data transfer in a conventional system. FIG. 1(a) illustrates a first register 10 which receives both data and a clock signal. The arrangement of FIG. 1(a) also includes a second register 20 which is supposed to receive data from the first register 10. The output of the first data register 10 is labelled Q1 and the output of second data register 20 is labelled Q2. Propagation delays are represented as two functional blocks. The first functional block, labelled TD DATA , represents the data propagation delay. The second functional block, labelled TD CLK , represents the clock delay. The &#34;clock to Q2 delay plus the data setup time&#34; and the &#34;register&#39;s internal clock delay&#34; are aggregated into TD DATA  and TD CLK , respectively. 
     The timing diagrams illustrated in FIG. 1(b) represent proper data transfer through the first and second registers 10 and 20. The signal &#34;CLOCK&#34; serves as a common causal signal. As can be seen in FIG. 1(b), the data makes a transition from a low state to a high state in the Nth clock cycle. The output Q1 of first data register 10 accordingly makes the transition from a low state to a high state in clock cycle N+1. The output of second register 20, Q2, makes a transition from a low state to a high state in clock cycle N+2. Thus, in the situation depicted, there is an orderly transfer of data through the first register 10 to the second register 20. This proper operation is possible because the clock time or propagation delay TD CLOCK  does not exceed the data time or propagation delay TD DATA . 
     The timing diagram illustrated in FIG. 1(c) shows the problem resulting when the common causal signal (&#34;CLOCK&#34;) experiences a greater time delay than does the data (TD CLK  &gt;TD DATA ). Notice that the data of Q2 becomes a logic level &#34;1&#34; during cycle N+1, i.e., the second register 20 is updated with the same data as the first register 10 within the same cycle of the causal signal. Unless the first register 10 and/or the data path delay can &#34;hold&#34; the data long enough after the second register 20 receives CLOCK, the receiver&#39;s realization of the causal edge after the sender will cause transmission failure. This problem is more difficult to solve when the data wire is bidirectional because then the designer cannot simply input the causal signal initially to the receiver device and allow it to propagate to the sender later. 
     Prior practices for guaranteeing successful data transmission include providing a very high speed clock which times sequencing logic to guarantee a minimum delay between when a chip may acquire data and when it may update, employing a phase locked loop, and designing an analog delay into the enable path of the driver. Each approach has disadvantages. For example, the first approach requires a higher clock rate than that otherwise required for proper system operation. The phase locked loops required in the second approach lock to certain frequency ranges; frequencies outside of those ranges will cause spurious operation. The main disadvantage of the second approach, however, is that a minimum frequency is required. Also, the second approach is complicated and represents a significant testability problem. The third approach may be a good solution if a wide enough range of time can be specified between the minimum delay an output must hold the data and the maximum delay from the causal signal edge until the data must be valid. If this is not the case, which is very often the situation because of semiconductor process and temperature variations, the third approach is not viable. 
     There is thus a need for an arrangement for facilitating successful data transmission between two devices such as registers. There is a need for such an arrangement method which guarantees successful data transmission without requiring a higher clock speed or utilizing a phase locked loop. There is also still need for an approach which is not sensitive to the range of time specified between the minimum delay an output must hold data and the maximum delay from a causal signal edge until the data must be valid. 
     SUMMARY 
     The present invention involves a means of facilitating successful data transfer between two or more digital memory elements by exporting the causal signal of the receiving element to the enable input of a driver device of the sending element. This driver device is also a memory element which holds its output state unless its enable input is activated at which time its output reflects its input data. This invention is especially applicable when these digital memory elements are registers on different integrated circuit (ICs), pc boards, etc. Implementation of the approach of this invention does not require a higher clock rate than that otherwise required for the system&#39;s operation. 
     In one aspect, the invention is a data transfer apparatus including a first digital memory element which generates a first data output in fixed relation to an applied data signal and an applied first causal signal and a driver device, responsive to a first delayed causal signal being the first causal signal after a first causal signal propagation delay, and receiving the first data output as an input signal, the driver device setting a value of an output signal equal to a value of the input signal when enabled by the first delayed causal signal, and alternatively holding the value of the output signal constant regardless of changes in the value of the input signal when not enabled by the first delayed causal signal. The system also includes a second digital memory element which generates a second data output in fixed relation to an applied data signal and a second delayed causal signal, the second delayed causal signal being the first causal signal after a second causal signal propagation delay, the second causal signal propagation delay being less than the first causal signal propagation delay, the applied data signal being the output of the driver device. 
     In another aspect, the invention is embodied as a data transfer apparatus including a first digital memory element which generates a first data output in fixed relation to an applied data signal and an applied first causal signal, a driver device connected to receive the first data output as a driver input signal and producing a driver output signal, and a second digital memory element connected to receive the driver output signal as an input signal. The second digital memory element generates a second data output in fixed relation to the driver output signal and a first delayed causal signal, the first delayed causal signal being the first causal signal after a first causal signal propagation delay, where the driver device is responsive to a second delayed causal signal being the first causal signal after a second causal signal propagation delay, the driver device setting a value of the driver output signal equal to a value of the driver input signal when enabled by the second delayed causal signal, and alternatively holding the value of the driver output signal constant regardless of changes in the value of the driver input signal when not enabled by the second delayed causal signal, the second causal signal propagation delay being greater than the first causal signal propagation delay. 
     In another aspect, the invention is embodied as a data transfer apparatus comprising a first digital memory element which generates a first element data output in fixed relation to an applied first element input data signal and an applied first causal signal, a first logic element for forming as an output a logical product of a delayed causal signal which is the first causal signal after a first propagation delay and a first directional control signal, and a first driver device, responsive to an output of the first logic element and receiving the first data output as a first driver input signal, the first driver device setting a value of a first driver output signal equal to a value of the first driver input signal when enabled by the output of the first logic element, and alternatively holding the value of the first driver output signal constant regardless of changes in the value of the first driver input signal when not enabled by the output of the first logic element. The first digital memory element, first logic element, and the first driver device may all be contained on one chip or substrate and the delayed causal signal may then be received from circuitry on a second chip or substrate arranged to receive the first driver output signal as an input signal. 
     The system may be used to facilitate data transfer between two circuits or among three or more circuits. Data transfer may be one way or bidirectional. The invention also resides in related methods for facilitating data transfer. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     These and other advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following verbal description read in conjunction with the drawings, in which: 
     FIG. 1 (a) is a functional block diagram of a prior art data transfer arrangement; 
     FIG. 1(b) is a timing diagram in the case of proper data transfer through the arrangement of FIG. 1(a); 
     FIG. 1(c) is a timing diagram in the case of improper data transfer, and, hence, transmission failure through the arrangement of FIG. 1(a); 
     FIG. 2(a) is a functional block diagram of an arrangement for improved data transmission in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention; 
     FIG. 2(b) is a timing diagram for the case of data propagation through the arrangement of FIG. 2(a); 
     FIG. 3(a) is a functional diagram of a driver device to be used in an arrangement according to the present invention; 
     FIG. 3(b) is a timing diagram showing a mode of operation of the device of FIG. 3(a); 
     FIG. 3(c) is a circuit diagram of one possible implementation of the driver device of FIG. 3(a); 
     FIG. 4(a) is a functional block diagram of a possible arrangement of a bidirectional interface according to the present invention; 
     FIG. 4(b) is a timing diagram for the arrangement of FIG. 4(a); 
     FIG. 5 is one possible arrangement for a shared bus interface according to an embodiment of the present invention; 
     FIG. 6 is one possible implementation of an interface to assure a lack of bus contention in an arrangement according to the present invention; and 
     FIG. 7 is a functional block diagram of an arrangement incorporating both the shared bus interface and an interface designed to assure lack of bus contention. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     FIGS. 2(a) and 2(b) illustrate the basic approach to solve the &#34;hold time&#34; problem explained in connection with FIG. 1(a) and 1(b). The driver device 30 of node Q1+will not be able to change the value of that node before the second register 20 has registered it. This is because node &#34;A&#34; will receive the causal edge of the clock before the enable input &#34;B&#34; of the driver device 30 will be asserted. The driver device 30 thus holds prior data as shown in FIG. 2(b). Note that the device driver 30 changes the output to reflect the data input only while the enable is asserted. The circuit shown in FIG. 2(a) is implemented using &#34;D&#34; type registers, but it will be readily apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that the principles of the invention apply generically to systems in which data is transferred between any two or more digital memory devices. 
     FIG. 3(a) is a functional diagram of an embodiment of a device driver 30 according to the present invention. As can be seen in the FIG., the device driver 30 has two inputs, a DATA --  IN input and an ENABLE input. The timing diagram presented in FIG. 3(b) shows how the data output DATA --  OUT is changed in response to the DATA --  IN input and the ENABLE input. When the ENABLE signal is low, the output signal DATA --  OUT does not change despite a change in the input signal DATA --  IN until ENABLE once again goes high. Then, if the DATA --  IN signal is high, DATA --  OUT goes high and will remain high until the ENABLE signal and a low DATA --  IN signal coincide. The bold output level on the DATA --  OUT trace in FIG. 3(b) is intended to indicate that DATA --  OUT is being driven by a low impedance source while the dashed line indicates a medium impedance. 
     Note that the device driver 30 holds its output level even when the ENABLE signal goes low. This distinguishes the device driver 30 from conventional three state drivers. 
     FIG. 3(c) is a CMOS logic schematic of the device driver 30. As can be seen, an ENABLE signal is provided to an inverter 40 and at the same time is provided as one of the inputs to a NAND gate 50. The DATA --  IN signal is supplied as the other input to the NAND gate 50 and also to an inverting input of an AND gate 60. The inverted ENABLE signal is applied to the other inverting input of the AND gate 60. 
     The signal from the NAND gate 50 is used to drive the gate of a transistor N2. In the embodiment depicted, the transistor N2 is an n channel mosfet. It will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, however, that any appropriate switching device can be used for any of the switches used, and that all logic can be replaced with Boolean equivalents. The signal from NAND gate 50 is also used to drive the gate of p channel mosfet P3. Similarly, the output of the AND gate 60 is used to drive the gate of an n channel mosfet N3 and also the gate of a p channel mosfet P1. Transistors P3 and N3 have their drains connected together. 
     The drains of transistors P1 and N2 are connected together by series combination of transistor P2 and transistor N1. These two transistors also have their drains coupled together as well as being connected to the common drains of transistors P3 and N3. The output from the circuit is taken from this node. Also, the output is inverted by inverter 70 which returns the inverted signal to drive the gates of transistors P2 and N1. 
     In the arrangement of FIG. 3(c), the transistor pairs P1, P2 and N1, N2 (the &#34;driving off&#34; set) provide a much higher impedance path from the output to their respective power supplies than do P3 and N3 (the &#34;driving on&#34; set) which are the vehicles to pull the output high or low when the ENABLE input is asserted. P1, P2 and N1, N2 provide the output holding mechanism. As will be set forth below, when bidirectional data flow is contemplated, there is a driver on each end of the output data line. The holding transistors at the receiver&#39;s end will succumb to the driving transistors from the sender after a logic delay through INV1. 
     FIG. 4(a) shows an embodiment of a bidirectional interface according to the present invention. FIG. 4(b) is a corresponding timing diagram. In FIG. 4(a), there are two chips, chip A and chip B. The system clock is supplied to the extreme right side core registers in chip A and the extreme left side core registers in chip B. The clock is then buffered (three more times in the embodiment shown) and supplied to an AND gate. In other words, the buffered clock signal off of chip A is supplied to an AND gate 80 and the buffered clock signal off of chip B is supplied to an AND gate 90. The other input for AND gate 80 is a directional control signal designated SHL --  B for &#34;shift left B.&#34; The other input for AND gate 90 is a signal designated SHR --  A for &#34;shift right A.&#34; 
     The signal from AND gate 80 is applied to the right hand driver device 30 which also receives the data from chip B. The output from AND gate 90 is supplied to the other driver device 30 associated with chip A as its enable signal. This other driver device 30 also receives data from chip A. Depending upon the state of the clock signal, and which directional control signal is high, data will flow to the right or to the left without concern for propagation delays since the clock of the receiving chip controls data flow. 
     FIG. 4(b) is made up of timing diagrams for an arrangement such as that shown in FIG. 4(a). The various signals shown are CLOCK, DATA --  A, CLOCK@X (the clock at the node indicated as NODE X in FIG. 4(a)), ENABLE@Y (the ENABLE signal at NODE Y in FIG. 4(a)), DATA, and Q(BREG). The chained line indicates that the driver device 30 is in a &#34;hold&#34; mode. FIG. 4(b) represents a situation where data is transmitted from chip A to chip B. Although chip B receives clock edges long after chip A, chip B&#39;s registers nevertheless latch the correct data. 
     FIG. 5 shows an embodiment of an interface according to the present invention as it might be configured where a common data bus is utilized for more than two chips. Note that only one pair of additional &#34;enable wires&#34; is needed for an entire bus of data. The overhead of the two additional pins is insignificant for a 32 bit bus. In FIG. 5, each chip is provided with essentially the same circuitry. The buffered system clock is provided to two enable wires, a first enable wire 100 and a second enable wire 110. The signal on these two enable wires is ANDed in each cell. For example, in chip A, it is ANDed in AND gate 120. The signal from AND gate 120 is then itself ANDed with a shift signal designated SH --  A in an AND gate 130. The output of this AND gate 130 supplies an enable signal to driver device 30. This permits the driver device 30 to put DATA --  A onto the common data bus. Operation in chip B and chip C is similar, so a description will not be repeated. 
     Immediately after power-up, the directional control signals (SHL, SHR) could cause a bus clash (i.e., two devices trying to drive opposite polarity data onto the common data line; reference FIG. 4(a) where chip A is enabled to shift fight while chip B could be enabled to shift left). To avert such a situation, a configuration such as that illustrated in FIG. 6 may be employed. FIG. 6 again shows an arrangement in which there are two chips, chip A and chip B. In this arrangement, a buffer 140 is arranged to receive a data request signal in chip B. This signal is provided to the non-inverting input of an AND gate 150 through a buffer 145 on chip A. The other input of the AND gate 150 is a data request signal originating in chip A; this is provided to an inverting input of AND gate 150. Similarly, in chip A, a data request signal is buffered and ultimately supplied to an AND gate 160 at its non-inverting input. The inverting input of AND gate 160 receives the data request signal originating in chip B. These signals are then supplied as an enable signal to respective driver devices 30. 
     The arrangement of FIG. 6 uses a pair of additional interface lines to facilitate the communication of one chip&#39;s transmission state to the other chip. The sender&#39;s driver can be enabled only if the receiver is requesting data and the sender is not requesting data. The arrangement of FIG. 6 thus prevents bus contentions which might arise if both chips were requesting or attempting to send data at the same time. The arrangement of FIG. 6, however, does not avoid bus contentions which might arise through propagation delays such as those discussed in connection with FIG. 1(a) and 1(b). Additional measures must be implemented to avoid delays of such a nature. 
     FIG. 7 illustrates an integration of the ideas shown in FIGS. 4(a) and 6. Again, there are two chips, chip A and chip B. The buffered system clock is provided to the extreme right side core registers of chip A and the extreme left side core registers of chip B. The clock signal coming off chip, however, instead of being simply buffered, is ANDed. 
     More specifically, the buffered system clock signal coming off of chip A is ANDed in AND gate 170. The other input for AND gate 170 is the directional control signal SHL --  A. In a similar fashion, the buffered system clock coming off of chip B is ANDed in AND gate 180 with the directional control signal SHR --  B. It is these signals which are supplied to AND gates 90 and 80 which are similar to those shown in FIG. 4(a). Hence, this illustration avoids bus clash and guarantees that the sender holds data a sufficiently long period of time for successful transmission despite clock skew. 
     With respect to the above approach to avoiding bus clashes after power-up, if many serial lines were present on a particular design, the above approach would present significant overhead. One alternative is to employ a power-on-reset circuit and reset logic which will maintain a disable state until specifically altered by an instruction. It is usually not the case, however, that many serial lines are present on a particular design. The typical case would be a situation with large parallel busses which render the conventional approach less efficient than that described above. 
     The invention has been described above in connection with specific embodiments. It will be readily appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art that these embodiments are merely illustrative. The invention is not limited to these embodiments, and, indeed, one of ordinary skill in the art can readily develop other embodiments incorporating the essential principles of the invention. The invention should therefore not be regarded as being limited by the above embodiments, but instead as being fully commensurate in scope with the following claims.