National Semiconductor Corporation

Hon C Fung

Timothy Don Davis

Martin S Michael

Kent Bruce Waterson

Paul J Patchen

Mark Douglas Koether

Dan E Daugherty

Fred Leung

Roman Baker

J Scott Johnson

Ahmed Masood

Steven McGinness

Input/output and local area network functions are combined into a single integrated circuit on a single semiconductor (e.g., a single piece of silicon). Preferred system embodiments on a single integrated circuit are typically placed inside a host system (e.g., a personal computer based on Intel.RTM.'s 286, 386, 486, and Pentium microprocessors) and interrelate with standard operating systems (e.g., Microsoft.RTM.'s DOS, IBM.RTM.'s OS/2) on traditional, commonly used bus architectures (e.g., Industry Standard Architecture and Enhanced Industry Standard). Local area network circuitry and input and output circuitry are both coupled to at least one host system (and indirectly to potentially any number of host systems tied together via the local area network system) via a common data bus. The input and output circuitry couples the host system to at least one input/output channels. Examples of the types of input/output channels are a first serial interface, a second serial interface, a parallel port, a hard drive, a floppy drive, and/or any combination thereof.

Combination of input output circuitry and local area network systems

An architecture is described for a single chip microcontroller wherein the microcode stored in the microcontroller's program memory may be easily modified without refabrication or removal of the microcontroller from its target environment. This is made possible by the utilization of a RAM based architecture for program memory instead of the traditional ROM based architecture.

Microcontroller with in-circuit user programmable microcode

Growing community of inventors

Arlington, TX, United States of America

Hon C Fung