Patent ID: 8230129

Claim:
A method for use in a system comprising a plurality of devices connected in-series in an interconnection configuration, each of the plurality of devices being associated with a device type, the method comprising: providing a first signal including a first binary search number to a first device of the plurality of devices in the interconnection configuration, the first binary search number being represented by a pre-defined number of bits, the first signal being propagated through the plurality of devices, incrementing the first binary search number included in the propagated first signal by each of the plurality of devices, an incremented first binary search number by each of the plurality of the devices replacing the first binary search number of the propagated first signal; receiving the propagated first signal from a last device of the plurality in the interconnection configuration, the received propagated first signal including the first binary search number incremented by each of the plurality of devices; recognizing the number of the plurality of devices in the interconnection configuration based on the first binary search number included in the received propagated first signal; and in a case of the first binary search number included in the received propagated first signal being zero, providing a second signal including a search device type and a second binary search number to the first device of the plurality of devices in the interconnection configuration, the second signal being propagated through the plurality of devices, at least one of the plurality of devices determining whether the search device type matches the device type associated with the device to provide a device type match determination result; modifying the second binary search number included in the propagated second signal in response to the device type match determination result, a modified second binary search number replacing the second binary search number of the propagated second signal; receiving the propagated second signal from the last device of the plurality of the interconnection configuration; obtaining the number of the plurality of devices in the interconnection configuration based on the pre-defined number of bits representing the first binary search number of the first signal, in response to the search number included in the received propagated second signal.