Lsi Corporation

Lsi Logic Corporation

Netapp, Inc.

Danny C Vogel

Daniel Deisz

Clinton P Seeman

Carl Shaw

Bryan Robb

Donald Thomas McGrath

Ricky F Bitting

Thomas W McKernan

David B Hildebrand

Michael J Casey

Robert F Smith

Victor Helenic

Michael Okronglis

An apparatus and method are described for encrypting and decrypting information stored in a plurality of disk drives located within a large storage system. In various embodiments of the invention, encryption and decryption processes are implemented within a storage controller or controllers in the storage system.

Security-enabled storage controller

A semiconductor platform for implementing multiple-frequency operations includes multiple physical resources comprising embedded functions and a configurable transistor fabric. The transistor fabric includes at least first and second portions, the first portion being programmable to instantiate a first function having higher frequency operations than the second portion. The platform further includes multiple logical resources corresponding to the physical resources of the semiconductor platform and a configurable power mesh to support multiple frequency operations configurable from the transistor fabric. The power mesh includes at least first and second configurable grids. The first configurable grid is operable at a different frequency than the second configurable grid. The power mesh is modifiable, as a function of a desired performance of a customer's requirements, in a vicinity of the first portion of the configurable transistor fabric to support the first function having higher frequency operations.

Power mesh for multiple frequency operation of semiconductor products

A circuit and method are presented for signal processing and routing of digital voice telephony signals, using a specialized high-density integrated circuit voice processor. The voice processor performs several essential functions required for telephony processing, including echo cancellation, protocol conversion, and dynamic range compression/expansion. These functions are traditionally performed by multiple circuits or modules. By combining these capabilities in a single device, power and circuit board area requirements are reduced. The embodiment of the circuit and method disclosed herein include novel implementations of a time-slot interchange circuit and a telephony signaling circuit. Both of these circuits are designed to minimize demands on the signal processing engines incorporated within the voice processor, and account for very little of the on-chip circuitry.

Time-slot interchange circuit

The design of integrated circuits, i.e., semiconductor products, is made easier with a semiconductor platform having versatile power mesh that is capable of supporting simultaneous operations having different frequencies on the semiconductor product; e.g., higher frequency operations may be embedded as diffused blocks within the lower layers or may be programmed from a configurable transistor fabric above the diffused layers. Preferably the power mesh is located above the layers having the operations requiring the different frequencies, and may be fixed in an application set given to a chip designer or may be configurable by the designer her/himself. For example, to support high speed communications adjacent an embedded high speed data transceiver, the transistor fabric may be programmed as a data link layer having higher performance requirements than the rest of the integrated circuit. The data link layer may be connected to one of the localized grids of the versatile power mesh which may have an increased density and/or wider strap width of a power/ground grid. Additional decoupling capacitance can be embedded in the lower layers of the semiconductor product and/or can be programmed from the configurable transistors fabric.

The present invention is directed to a method and system for testing systems involving high speed SERDES cores by exposing an internal nature of signals. The signals are tapped at various external test points. The present invention may take one or more test points in receive and/or transmit paths of high speed SERDES cores, and expose the test points by routing signals to the pins/balls on a chip. Programmable directing (multiplexing) of signals may be utilized to restrict number of output debug ports. Consequently, the number of the pin count required for the chip may be controlled.

Selective test point for high speed SERDES cores in semiconductor design

A comparator receives first differentials, compares the differentials to a positive offset, and sets bits dependent upon whether the differentials are greater than the positive offset. The comparator receives second differentials, compares the differentials to a negative offset, and sets bits dependent upon whether the differentials are greater than the negative offset. The comparator compares the first bits to the second bits, and sets a mask dependent upon whether the first bits and the second bits are identical. The comparator receives subsequent differentials, compares the differentials to a zero offset, and sets bits dependent upon whether the differentials are greater than the zero offset. The subsequent bits are compared to the mask and corrected.

Identification circuit with repeatable output code

A method of stabilizing an identification series of bits by iteratively reading the identification series and logical OR'ing the identification series with a mask string after each read of the identification series. This produces a mask string having a first value in all positions of the mask string where bits in the identification series have never changed value during all of the readings of the identification series, representing stable bits, and a second value in all positions of the mask string where bits in the identification series have changed value during at least one of the readings of the identification series, representing unstable bits. The number of the unstable bits in the mask string having the second value is counted, and a method failure code is selectively reported when the number of unstable bits exceeds a maximum allowable number of unstable bits. An identification string is produced from the stable bits, and an identification code is calculated from the identification string. The identification code does not disclose the identification string, but is able to confirm the accuracy of the identification string and selectively correct a given number of bits within a corrupted identification string. At least one of the identification string, the identification code, and the mask string are stored.

Stabilization for random chip identifier circuit

The present invention is directed to a customizable development and demonstration platform for structured ASICs. In an exemplary aspect of the present invention, the present platform may include a structured ASIC which is built on a slice and which may be flexible enough for a number of possible application developments. This flexibility may be achieved by incorporating a programmable processor in the structured ASIC and by defining interfaces and the use of an external FPGA in the present platform. The structured ASIC may include a complete ARM processor subsystem and a plurality of high speed SERDES ports. The processor subsystem may include a bus interface to the external FPGA, allowing custom gate development and test in the FPGA, prior to incorporating it into the customer product. Through the SERDES ports, the test block may be used to show the electrical characteristics of the SERDES IP. In addition, some SERDES ports may be driven from a link layer realized in the FPGA. This may allow the same chip and board to implement SATA (serial advanced technology attachment), GigE, XAUI, XGXS, Fiber Channel, and the like by changing the programming of the FPGA on the board.

Customizable development and demonstration platform for structured ASICs

A FIFO memory having an available capacity of no more than N words deep by M bits wide. A write port receives data to store in the FIFO memory, and a read port provides the data stored in the FIFO memory. X memories store the data, where each of the X memories has a size of N/X by M. Control logic receives the data from the write port, writes the data into at least one of the X memories in a serial write manner, reads the data from at least one of the X memories in a serial read manner, and provides the data to the read port. The control logic also disables power to selected ones of the X memories when they are not being written to or read from. The FIFO memory is configured to both read and write the data at a given time to a given one of the X memories.

Area efficient first-in first-out circuit

Efficient high density voice processor

An integrated circuit layout is provided, which includes a base platform for an integrated circuit, a processor hardmac and a support memory. The base platform includes a memory matrix having leaf cells arranged in rows and columns. Each column of leaf cells has interface pins that are routed to a common matrix edge and have a common pin order along the matrix edge. The processor hardmac is placed along the memory matrix and has a hardmac edge adjacent the memory matrix edge and a plurality of interface pins for interfacing with corresponding interface pins of the memory matrix. The interface pins of the processor hardmac have the same pin order along the hardmac edge as the interface pins along the matrix edge. The support memory for the processor hardmac is mapped to a portion of the memory matrix along the hardmac edge.

Integrated circuit with relocatable processor hardmac

The present invention is directed to a customizable development and demonstration platform for structured ASICs. In an exemplary aspect of the present invention, the present platform may include a structured ASIC which is built on a slice and which may be flexible enough for a number of possible application developments. This flexibility may be achieved by incorporating a programmable processor in the structured ASIC and by defining interfaces and the use of an external FPGA in the present platform. The structured ASIC may include a complete ARM processor subsystem and a plurality of high speed SERDES ports. The processor subsystem may include a bus interface to the external FPGA, allowing custom gate development and test in the FPGA, prior to incorporating it into the customer product. Through the SERDES ports, the test block may be used to show the electrical characteristics of the SERDES IP. In addition, some SERDES ports may be driven from a link layer realized in the FPGA. This may allow the same chip and board to implement SATA (serial advanced technology attachment), GigE, XAUI, XGXS, Fibre Channel, and the like by changing the programming of the FPGA on the board.

A semiconductor device comprising one or more diffused memories and one or more diffused regions. The one or more diffused regions may be configured to provide one or more ports for the one or more diffused memories.

Growing community of inventors

Norfolk, MA, United States of America

Danny C Vogel