Qualcomm Incorporated

Michael Zilbershtein

Alexander Khazin

Gilad Meir Sthoeger

Lior Amarilio

Boaz Moskovich

Ben Levin

A serial low-power inter-chip media bus communications link is deployed in apparatus having multiple Integrated Circuit devices. Communications capabilities of a device coupled to the communications link may be determined and configuration or framing message may be sent to the first device based on the capabilities. The messages may be transmitted on a primary data line of the communications link with a clock used to control timing of transmission on at least the primary data line. The communications capabilities can include information identifying a number of data wires supported by or coupled to the device. A first device may be configured to communicate with a second device over a secondary data line, which may be reserved for such direct communication. Communications on the secondary data line may be synchronized using the clock signal and may be controlled by a different protocol than the protocol used for the primary data line.

System and method of sending data via additional secondary data lines on a bus

Full bandwidth communication buses are disclosed. While primarily focused on the Serial Low-power Inter-chip Media Bus (SLIMbus) communication bus, the concepts of the present disclosure may be extended to other communication buses. Exemplary aspects of the present disclosure utilize a reserved segment distribution code and a segment length to define a Segment Interval that is better-sized relative to raw data bits. By fitting the segment interval to the size of the raw data bits, bandwidth utilization is maximized, resulting in faster effective data transfers. Completion of such efficient data transfers may allow the communication bus to spend more time in a low-power mode and thus, conserve power. Additionally, such efficient data transfers may allow for better quality in presentation of multimedia content to the user.

Full bandwidth communication buses

Systems and methods to detect errors and record actions on a bus are disclosed. In one embodiment, the bus is a serial low-power interchip media bus (SLIMbus) within a computing device. The SLIMbus is coupled to peripherals and a sniffer is positioned within the computing device and coupled to the SLIMbus. The sniffer mimics another SLIMbus peripheral. However, the sniffer uses a pair of multiplexers to know when to record data on the SLIMbus. The data, including the control header and payload of the data signal is captured and logged. The logged data is then exported to memory where it can be further processed so as to help debug communication on the SLIMbus.

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Haifa, Israel

Michael Zilbershtein