Patent ID: 8090823

Claim:
A method in a data processing system for providing low-level hardware access to in-band and out-of-band firmware, wherein the data processing system includes a plurality of chips, and wherein the plurality of chips includes at least one processor chip and a plurality of support chips, the method comprising: including a field replaceable unit support interface master only in the at least one processor chip, wherein the field replaceable unit support interface master uses a field replaceable unit support interface serial transmission protocol to communicate with the plurality of support chips; including a field replaceable unit support interface slave in each one of the plurality of support chips, wherein ones of the plurality of chips that include a processor include the field replaceable unit support interface master, and wherein ones of the plurality of chips that do not include the processor include only the field replaceable unit support interface slave; including conversion logic only in the field replaceable unit support interface master; monitoring, by the field replaceable unit support interface master, a bus for a first packet, wherein the first packet targets a resource in one of the plurality of support chips, wherein the first packet is transmitted on the bus using a particular protocol; converting, by the conversion logic, the first packet information from the particular protocol into a command that uses the field replaceable unit support interface serial transmission protocol, wherein the conversion is executed only in the field replaceable unit support interface master; wherein the command is initiated by at least one of an instruction executed by in-band firmware running on the processor and an instruction executed by out-of-band firmware running on a support processor, wherein multiple independent commands may be initiated on a bus at the same time by instructions executed by the in-band firmware running on different processors; transmitting the command to one of the plurality of support chips using the field replaceable unit support interface serial transmission protocol; receiving a response to the command from one of the plurality of support chips; converting, by the conversion logic, the response from the field replaceable unit support interface serial transmission protocol into second packet information that uses the particular protocol, wherein the conversion is executed only in the field replaceable unit support interface master; generating a second packet, using the second packet information; and returning the second packet to the bus using the particular protocol.