Intel Corporation

Matthew A Schnoor

Myron Loewen

Janusz Jurski

Enrico David Carrieri

George Vergis

Amit Kumar Srivastava

Rajesh Bhaskar

Amit Kumar

Kenneth Foust

Bradley H Smith

Aaron A Mcbride

Tim McKee

Marcus Winston

Tim Mckee

An apparatus and method to monitor status of a serial data signal on a low speed serial bus is provided. A controller configures a watchdog timer in each target device, sends a heart-beat command to all of the target devices over the low speed serial bus prior to the expiration of the watchdog timer and issues a broadcast read command to any one of the target devices on the low speed serial bus. A response to the broadcast read command confirms that the low speed serial bus is functional. If a response is not received, the low speed serial bus is not functional and the controller initiates a broadcast reset command to initialize all target devices on the low speed serial bus.

Self-healing low speed serial interface

Embodiments of the present disclosure may relate to apparatus, process, or techniques in a I3C protocol environment that include identifying a pending read notification message by a slave device to be sent to a master device to indicate that the data is available to be read by the master device from a buffer associated with the slave device. The pending read notification may be subsequently transmitted to the master device. Subsequently, until the data in the buffer has been read by the master device, the slave device may wait an identified amount of time that is less than a value of a timeout of the master device, and retransmit the pending read notification message to the master device. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

I3C pending read with retransmission

An apparatus may include a controller for a system management bus. The controller may be to: detect a trigger event associated with the system management bus; in response to a detection of the trigger event, transmit a broadcast address on the system management bus, where the broadcast address is not used in a first communication protocol; and in response to a determination that the transmitted broadcast address was acknowledged, use a second communication protocol for transmissions on the system management bus. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Selection of communication protocol for management bus

Embodiments of the present disclosure may relate to the existence of a unique value associated with each PCIe function or device that is readable from two or more PCIe functions, or from a CPU running system software. Embodiments enable system software to identify which PCIe functions have private or hidden connections. In addition, embodiments may allow system software to differentiate among multiple identical instances of PCIe add-in components that have associations. Other embodiments may be described and/or claimed.

Determining a private connection between devices or functions of a serial bus

Methods and apparatus for dynamically provisioning virtualized functions in a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device by means of a virtual USB hub. The virtual USB hub includes a USB upstream port configured to be connected to a host system and at least one external bus or external interface to which devices including non-USB devices or computing devices in which non-USB devices are embedded may be connected. The virtual USB hub is configured to detect the non-USB devices and/or functions performed by the non-USB devices and generate corresponding virtual USB configuration information under which virtual USB devices and/or functions are connected to downstream virtual ports in the virtual USB hub. The virtual USB configuration is presented to the host computer to enable the host computer to communicate with the non-USB devices and/or their functions. Also disclosed is an I3C probe having an embedded virtual USB hub and configured to communicate with I3C devices and/or functions embedded within a target system under debug. USB devices may also be virtualized in a similar manner.

Method for dynamically provisioning virtualized functions in a USB device by means of a virtual USB hub

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes: a peer-to-peer (P2P) control circuit to issue a P2P communication request to a bus master of a multi-drop interconnect to request authorization to send a P2P transaction to at least one slave device coupled to the multi-drop interconnect; a transmitter to transmit the P2P transaction to the at least one slave device when the bus master grants the authorization for the P2P transaction; and another transmitter to output the clock signal to the multi-drop interconnect during the P2P transaction. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

System, apparatus and method for peer-to-peer communication on a multi-drop interconnect

A method and apparatus for restoring a system including a hard drive having a main logical disk and a recovery local disk, to a pristine state. The method comprises installing a copy of the master boot record onto the main logical drive of the hard drive and installing operating system information from the recovery drive to the main drive. The method further comprises setting the master boot record to boot from the main local drive, and rebooting the system.

Growing community of inventors

Hillsboro, OR, United States of America

Matthew A Schnoor