Macronix International Co., Ltd.

Ming-Chang Su

Chang-Chi Liu

Jenn-Liang Chang

Jung-Yu Lee

An internal arbiter for a repeater in a computer network regulates access to a common communication channel through which the repeaters communicate with each other. The internal arbiter of the present invention uses a hybrid structure to detect possible contention between repeaters for access to the common communication channel. This hybrid structure combines the fast speed of a system which uses a plurality of dedicated wires (one for each repeater) to broadcast arbitration signals between repeaters, with expandability of a daisy chain interconnection to perform the same function. Additionally, the present invention provides a method for insuring that arbitration inputs are stabilized before they influence arbitration outputs by interposing a delay into the arbitration inputs, and only proceeding to generate arbitration outputs if the input values agree with the delayed input values.

Internal arbiter for a repeater in a computer network

A 100BASE-T compliant integrated circuit multiport repeater provides one or more medium independent interfaces (MII's) and a plurality of physical interfaces. This facilitates connection of the repeater to one or more external medium access controller devices also implementing the MII standard. The multiport repeater device shares status, configuration and control management function of the MII among the plurality of physical ports. Therefore, only one MII physical address is needed for each multiport repeater, rather than for each physical transceiver in the system. The medium independent interfaces on the repeater chip share a number of pins and logic so that the total number of I/O pins required for a repeater chip according to the present invention with multiple medium independent interfaces is substantially reduced over a similar device which might have a plurality of independent medium independent interfaces. The user of the repeater is capable of configuring the chip to handle a variety of different kinds of physical communication medium on a port by port basis, using the MII management bus.

Expandable integrated circuit multiport repeater controller with

An apparatus for automatic configuration of multiple peripheral interface subsystems in a computer system, the computer system including a system expansion bus for adopting a plurality of functional peripheral interface subsystems, the apparatus comprises a software identification code buffer for buffering a software-generated identification code sent via the system expansion bus; a hardware identification code memory for storing a unique hardware identification code; a software identification code register for transmitting the software identification code via the system expansion bus for the access of the computer system; an instruction register for receiving instructions transmitted by the computer system; a hardware identification code detector for receiving the instruction transmitted by the computer system and stored in the instruction register to control the hardware identification code detector; and an automatic jump state circuit for receiving the instruction transmitted by the computer system and registered by the instruction register and for receiving the control signal sent by the hardware identification code detector to control the jump-seeking of address space in the computer system. The hardware identification code detector compares the hardware identification code stored in the hardware identification code memory with a software identification code bufferred in the software identification code buffer under the control of the software routine. Upon the mismatch result of the comparison, a newly generated trial software identification code is compared with the hardware identification code, until both the generated software identification code and the hardware identification code match each other. The automatic jumping state circuit locks the current address space upon the comparison match of the software and hardware identification codes.

Growing community of inventors

Hsinchu, Taiwan

Ming-Chang Su