Patent ID: 8127309

Claim:
An interface system, comprising: a bus configured to operate in one of: a secure digital (SD) mode or an SD input/output (SDIO) mode; an SD driver module configured to communicate through the bus with an SD peripheral card when the bus is in the SD mode; an SDIO driver module configured to communicate through the bus with an SDIO peripheral card when the bus is in the SDIO mode; and a bus control module configured to receive a communication notification signal from the SDIO peripheral card when the SD peripheral card is communicating with the SD driver module, wherein the bus control module is configured to receive the communication notification signal via a side channel independent of the bus, wherein the bus control module is configured to switch the bus from the SD mode to the SDIO mode in response to the communication notification signal, wherein the SDIO driver module is configured to receive an interrupt signal from the SDIO peripheral card via the bus in response to the bus being switched to the SDIO mode, and wherein the bus control module is configured to switch to the SD mode from the SDIO mode after a predetermined amount of time, wherein the predetermined amount of time is set based on signals from the SD driver module that are generated prior to the switching.