Patent Document

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   1. Field of the Invention 
   This invention is related in general to the field of information handling systems. In particular, the invention consists of a method of transmitting status information from a multitude of electronic devices over a common connector. 
   2. Description of the Prior Art 
   Electronic systems, such as printed circuit boards with numerous electronic components, can generate trace information that may be transmitted to other circuit boards, other electronic systems, other locations, or even a central monitoring station. This trace information may include an indication of the condition of the electronic components, their arrangement within the electronic system, their current activity, the contents of memory registers within the electronic components, or whether electric faults such as open or shorted circuits exists. 
   One example of this type of system is a printed circuit board containing multiple electronic components that include programmable input/output pins. Using a technique known as boundary scan, instructions may be loaded into the programmable components that instruct the programmable pins to transmit logic high, logic low, and high impedance signals. Other programmable pins may be instructed to simultaneously accept these transmitted signals as inputs. The result of this transmission and concurrent reception may be passed to an external connector on the printed circuit board. This external connector may be monitored to determine the status of the programmable electronic components or the connections between them. 
   Tracing of electronic equipment becomes more difficult as electronic system bus widths and clock speeds increase, and as the number of electric traces and number of component conditions increase. The major bottleneck for obtaining more information is the amount of information that may be transmitted through the external connector. Due to the limited bandwidth of a traditional connector, tracing is generally limited to a subset of the information of interest. This results in potentially useful information being inaccessible. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to increase the amount of trace information that may be transmitted through a connector. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The invention disclosed herein is a method of simultaneously queueing and transmitting multiple sets of trace information through a common connector. Using existing connector pins, sets of trace data can be sent to a queueing device such as a multiplexor. Each set of trace data is associated with its own clock signal. Successive data that form a trace set are transmitted only during the transition of their corresponding clock signal. 
   One aspect of this invention is that simple electronic components may be utilized to increase trace data transmission. For example, a simple double-clocked latch and a single clock signal may be used to simultaneously transmit two disparate trace data streams, effectively doubling the bandwidth of an associated connector. This is accomplished by running the clock signal through an inverter and connecting the original clock and inverted clock to separate enable pins on the double-clocked latch. In a positive edge-triggered latch, the first trace data stream is transmitted when the original clock goes high. The second trace data stream is transmitted when the original clock signal goes low, resulting in the inverted clock signal going high. 
   Another aspect of the invention is that disparate trace information may be transmitted on different edges of the same clock signal. For example, a multiplexor may be designed to transmit data arriving at a first input pin during a positive edge of the clock signal and to transmit data arriving at a second input pin during a negative edge of the clock signal. Another benefit of the invention is that multiple clock signals may be used to enable the throughput of disparate trace information. Additionally, the invention can be adapted to include trace information signals that are more than one bit wide, i.e., data arriving on an 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, or 64-bit bus. 
   Various other purposes and advantages of the invention will become clear from its description in the specification that follows and from the novel features particularly pointed out in the appended claims. Therefore, to the accomplishment of the objectives described above, this invention comprises the features hereinafter illustrated in the drawings, fully described in the detailed description of the preferred embodiments and particularly pointed out in the claims. However, such drawings and description disclose just a few of the various ways in which the invention may be practiced. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1A  is a block diagram of a trace information queueing system in accordance with the invention including a single clock signal, multiple trace information input signals, and a queueing device including a single enable pin, multiple data inputs, and a single trace information output signal. 
       FIG. 1B  is a block diagram of the trace information queueing system of  FIG. 1  wherein each trace information signal includes a plurality of electric signals traveling over a bus formed of a plurality of signal pathways 
       FIG. 2  is a block diagram of the trace information queueing system of  FIG. 1  including an inverter and a second enable pin. 
       FIG. 3  is a schematic diagram of the trace information queueing system of  FIG. 2  utilizing a double-clocked latch as the queueing device. 
       FIG. 4  is a block diagram of a trace information queueing system similar to that of  FIG. 2 , but with multiple clock signals. 
       FIG. 5  is a flow-chart illustrating the process of accepting multiple trace information input signals, transmitting data forming one of the trace information input signals in response to a first triggering event, and transmitting data forming each subsequent trace information signal in response to other disparate triggering events, using a common output device. 
   

   DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
   This invention is based on the idea of using a queueing device, such as a multiplexor, to transmit trace data along with a clock to multiplex multiple data images to align with different clock edges. The invention may be implemented as a method, apparatus or article of manufacture using standard programming or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein refers to code or logic implemented in hardware or computer readable media such as optical storage devices, and volatile or non-volatile memory devices. Such hardware may include, but is not limited to, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs), programmable logic arrays (PLAs), microprocessors, or other similar processing devices. 
   Referring to the figures, wherein like parts are designated with the same reference numerals and symbols,  FIG. 1  is a block diagram illustrating a trace information queueing system  10  including multiple trace information input signals  12 ,  13  a single trace information output signal  14 , at least one clock signal  16 , and a queueing device  18  including multiple inputs  20 , a single output  22 , and at least one transmission enable pin  24 . The trace information queueing system may include a connector  26  for transmitting the trace information output signal. 
   The trace information queueing device  18  may be either a hardware device or a computer processing device programmed to accept multiple trace information signals and output a single trace information signal. If the queueing device  18  is a programmable logic device such as an FPGA, the clock signals may be generated internally, eliminating the need for the external clock signal  16  and the enable pin  24 . Additionally, an algorithmic construct residing within the computer processing device may be dynamically adaptive, e.g., providing additional internal clock signals in response to receiving additional concurrent trace information input signals. 
   In this embodiment of the invention, multiple trace information input signals  12 ,  13  arrive at the queueing device  18 . These trace information input signals normally contain information in a digital format, however the queueing system  10  may be adapted to work with analog information as well. The trace information input signals  12 ,  13  are multiplexed through the signal output  22  based on triggering events. In this embodiment of the invention, the triggering event is either a rising edge or a falling edge of the clock signal  16 . When the clock signal transitions from low to high, a datum of the first trace information signal  12  is transmitted through the output pin  22  to the connector  26 . When the clock signal transitions from high to low, a datum of the second trace information signal  13  is transmitted. In this manner, both trace information signals  12 ,  13  are transmitted using a single clock signal  16  as the triggering event. 
   If the enabling pin  24  is allowed to recognize more than two states, then additional trace information signals may be multiplexed with this clock signal. For example, if the enabling pin  24  is adapted to recognize zero to 2.4 volts as a logic low, 2.5 to 3.5 volts as a logic mid, and 3.6 volts and over as a logic high, then as many as three trace information signals may be multiplexed by this device. 
   Referring to  FIG. 1B , a block diagram illustrates a trace information queueing system  110  similar to that of  FIG. 1A . However, the queueing device  118  has been adapted to accept trace information signals  112 ,  113  that include more than one electric signal. In this example, 64-bit buses are used to transport the trace information signals  112 ,  113 ,  114  and the connector  126  has been adapted to simultaneously transmit 64 electric signals. Additionally, the inputs  120  and outputs  122  of the queuing device  118  have been enlarged to 64 pins. These modifications allow the trace information queueing system  110  to work with trace information signals that are many bits wide. However, buses such as these are usually a power of two such as 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128. 
   Another exemplary implementation of the invention is illustrated in the block diagram of  FIG. 2 . The trace information queueing system  210  includes an inverter  28  and an additional enable pin  24 . In this embodiment of the invention, transmitting the first trace information input signal  112  to the signal output  24  would be triggered by one edge of the clock signal  16  and the transmission of the second trace information input signal  113  would be triggered by the other edge of the clock. The schematic diagram of  FIG. 3  illustrates such as embodiment with the trace information queueing system  310  utilizing a double-clocked latch  30  as the queueing device  18 . 
     FIG. 4  is a block diagram illustrating a trace information queueing system  410  similar to that illustrated in  FIG. 2 . However, each trace information input signal  112 ,  113  has its own associated clock signal  16 . In this manner, the queueing system  410  may be expanded with multiple input signals being transmitted according to a like number of clock signals. The number of input signals and corresponding clock signals is limited only by the set-up time and hold-time requirements of the queueing device and the signal responsiveness of the electric pathways carrying the signals. 
     FIG. 5  is a flow-chart illustrating a deferred transmission algorithm  32  including receiving concurrent trace information input signals (step  34 ), receiving a first triggering event (step  36 ), transmitting data forming a first trace information signal (step  38 ), receiving a second triggering event (step  40 ) and transmitting data forming a second trace information signal (step  42 ). The algorithm may be expanded to include more than two trace information input signals. When data from the last trace information input signal has been transmitted, the algorithm returns to step  36 , waiting for a re-occurrence of the first triggering event so that it may cycle through the transmission steps recursively. 
   Those skilled in the art of making status information tracking systems may develop other embodiments of the present invention. The terms and expressions which have been employed in the foregoing specification are used herein as terms of description and not of limitation, and there is no intention in the use of such terms and expressions of excluding equivalents of the features shown and described or portions thereof, it being recognized that the scope of the invention is defined and limited only by the claims which follow. Other embodiments of the invention may be implemented by those skilled in the art of transmitting trace information.

Technology Category: 3