Patent ID: 8416717

Claim:
A signal communication apparatus, comprising: a first communication channel configured to communicate signals between first and second devices and including: a first-channel transmitter configured to encode and transmit signals; a first-channel receiver configured to receive and decode transmitted signals; and a first-channel integrated galvanic isolation interface coupled between the first-channel transmitter and the first-channel receiver, wherein the first-channel transmitter is configured to encode signals into frames of H bits including P data bits, K redundancy bits and L control bits to identify a frame type, P, K and L being positive integers, and to serially transmit encoded frames through the first-channel interface to the first-channel receiver and the first-channel receiver is configured to decode received encoded frames; and a second communication channel configured to communicate signals between the first and second devices and including: a second-channel transmitter configured to encode and transmit signals; a second-channel receiver configured to receive and decode transmitted signals; and a second-channel integrated galvanic isolation interface coupled between the second-channel transmitter and the second-channel receiver, wherein the second-channel transmitter is configured to encode signals into frames of H bits including P data bits, K redundancy bits and L control bits to identify the frame type, P, K and L being positive integers, and to serially transmit encoded frames through the second-channel interface to the second-channel receiver and the second-channel receiver is configured to decode received encoded frames, wherein the first-channel receiver is configured to selectively request a resending of a frame by the first-channel transmitter using the second communication channel.