Nuvoton Technology Corporation

Kang-Fu Chiu

Chih-Hung Huang

Hao-Yang Chang

Chun-Wei Chiu

A bus system is provided. A plurality of slave devices are electrically connected to a master device through an enhanced serial peripheral interface (eSPI) bus. Each slave device has an alert handshake pin. The alert handshake pins of the slave devices are electrically connected together via an alert handshake control line. In a first phase of a plurality of phases in each assignment period of an assignment stage after a synchronization stage, the first slave device is configured to control the alert handshake control line to a second voltage level via the alert handshake pin. In the phases of each of the assignment periods except for the first phase, a first slave device of the slave devices is configured to control the alert handshake control line to communicate with the slave devices via the alert handshake pin. The first phase corresponds to a first slave device.

Bus system connecting slave devices with single-wire data access communication

A bus system is provided. A plurality of slave devices are electrically connected to a master device through an enhanced serial peripheral interface (eSPI) bus. The slave devices are electrically connected together via a control line. A first slave device is configured to provide a first clock signal to each second slave device via the control line, so that a second clock signal of each second slave device is synchronized with the first clock signal. After the second clock signals are synchronized with the first clock signal, each second slave device is configured to adjust a phase of the second clock signal in a clock phase shift stage, so that each second clock signal has a phase difference with the first clock signal. The phase differences between the second clock signals of the second slave devices and the first clock signal are different.

Bus system with controllable communication priority

A bus system is provided. The bus system includes a master device, an enhanced serial peripheral interface (eSPI) bus, an SPI bus, a memory device electrically connected to the master device via the SPI bus, and a plurality of slave devices electrically connected to the master device via the eSPI bus. Each of the slave devices has a pin, and the pins of the slave devices are electrically connected together via a control line. After obtaining program code from the memory device via the master device, a first slave device is configured to decrypt the program code according to a first security code, and transmit the program code decrypted by the first security code to the slave devices via the control line, so that the program code decrypted by the first security code is decrypted in the slave devices according to a decryption sequence.

Bus system

A bus system is provided. A memory device is electrically connected to a master device via a serial peripheral interface (SPI) bus. A plurality of slave devices are electrically connected to the master device via an enhanced SPI (eSPI) bus. Each of the slave devices has an alert handshake pin. The alert handshake pins of the slave devices are electrically connected together via an alert-handshake control line. The first slave device is electrically connected to the memory device via the SPI bus. After obtaining a program code from the memory device, the first slave device verifies the program code using a security code and controls the alert-handshake control line to unlock all the slave devices except for the first slave device via the alert handshake pin in response to the program code being verified. The unlocked slave devices communicate with the master device via the eSPI bus.

An integrated circuit includes a specific pin, an output circuit, a voltage detector, and a controller. The output circuit is coupled to the specific pin. The voltage detector obtains a detection voltage value from the specific pin. In response to an alert request, the controller provides a control signal to the output circuit based on the detection voltage value, so as to selectively control the output circuit to transmit the alert signal to the specific pin. When the control signal instructs the integrated circuit to operate in a blocking mode, the output circuit blocks the alert signal from being transmitted to the specific pin. When the control signal instructs the integrated circuit to operate in a transmission mode, the output circuit transmits the alert signal to the specific pin.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Kang-Fu Chiu