Nxp Usa, Inc.

Freescale Semiconductor,inc.

Robert Freddie Moran

Derek Beattie

Alistair Robertson

Mark Maiolani

Andrew Edward Birnie

Carl Culshaw

Ray Charles Marshall

Alan Devine

Philippe Mounier

Murray Douglas Stewart

Rao Karthik C Ganesh

Robin Paling

A method of detecting overcurrent events within at least one electronic device, and an overcurrent detection module therefor. The method comprises receiving at least one current requirement indication from at least one electronic device, determining at least one overcurrent value based at least partly on the received at least one current requirement indication, receiving at least one indication of at least one input current flow for the at least one electronic device, and determining that an overcurrent event is occurring if the indicated at least one input current flow for the at least one electronic device exceeds the determined at least one overcurrent value.

Method and apparatus for detecting and managing overcurrent events

An integrated circuit (IC) module comprising at least one memory mapped resource, at least one port arranged to be coupled to a further IC module, and an address decoding component. Upon receipt of a resource access request by the IC module, the address decoding component is arranged to extract at least one position parameter from an address field of the received resource access request, determine if the at least one position parameter indicates a target resource as residing within the IC module, and if it is determined that the at least one position parameter indicates the target resource as not residing within the IC module, modify the at least one position parameter to represent a change of one position and forward the resource access request with the modified position parameter over the port to the further IC module.

IC module and method of decoding resource access requests

Aspects of the invention relate to an integrated circuit device and method of production thereof. The integrated circuit device comprises at least one application semiconductor die comprising at least one functional component arranged to provide application functionality, at least one functional safety semiconductor die comprising at least one component arranged to provide at least one functional safety undertaking for the at least one application semiconductor die, and at least one System in Package, SiP, connection component operably coupling the at least one functional safety semiconductor die to the at least one application semiconductor die to enable the at least one functional safety semiconductor die to provide the at least one functional safety undertaking for the at least one application semiconductor die.

Integrated circuit device

An interrupt controlled prefetching and caching technique includes transferring peripheral data from a peripheral to a peripheral cache via direct memory access in response to receiving an interrupt request from the peripheral. The technique includes executing an interrupt service routine prologue in response to completion of transferring of peripheral data. The technique may include providing a base address and a transfer trigger to initiate the transferring of the peripheral data. The technique may include executing a peripheral interrupt service routine after executing the interrupt service routine prologue. The technique may include executing an interrupt service routine epilogue after executing the peripheral interrupt service routine, the interrupt service routine epilogue including resetting an interrupt status flag associated with the interrupt request. Executing the interrupt service routine may include executing instructions using the peripheral data at a rate at least an order of magnitude faster than an access time of the peripheral.

Interrupt-controlled direct memory access peripheral data transfer

An apparatus for maintaining alertness of an driver of a motor vehicle periodically generates an audible alert signal to which the driver responds by pressing a button on the vehicle's steering wheel. The response time of the driver to the signal is monitored and if an increase is detected, the repetition rate of the alert signal is increased. The repetition rate may be further modified by taking into account vehicle driving conditions which may indicate a risk of boredom in the driver.

Method and apparatus for maintaining alertness of an operator of a manually-operated system

A peripheral integrated circuit (IC) device for providing support to a data processing IC device. The peripheral IC device comprises a fault detection component arranged to detect an occurrence of fault conditions within the data processing IC device. The peripheral IC device further comprises a safe state control component. Upon detection of a fault condition occurring within the data processing IC device by the fault detection component, the safe state control component is arranged to cause at least one I/O cell of the data processing IC device to be configured into at least one scan-chain, and cause at least one predefined control signal to be scanned into the at least one scan-chain to configure the at least one I/O cell into a state corresponding to the predefined control signal.

Method and apparatus for configuring I/O cells of a signal processing IC device into a safe state

A method and apparatus for generating an indicator of a risk level in motor vehicle and notifying vehicle systems when a risk level is above a specific threshold includes, receiving a plurality of driver distraction indicators, assigning a weighting value to each indicator, applying a scaling factor to the weighting value assigned to those indicators which are identified as being related, and summing the weighting values to produce an output value indicating a risk level. Distraction indicators can include on-board system and sensor outputs and stored data relating to driver attributes. Related indicators may comprise those distraction indicators relating to environmental conditions (eg. rain and low ambient light levels), or to vehicle performance to driver concentration level (eg. in-car phone and navigation system). The scaling step allows the weighting process to be refined based on the status of other received indicators.

Method and apparatus for generating and indicator of a risk level in operating systems

In a system on chip SoC, a memory control unit connected between the memory unit and the processing unit controls access to the memory unit. An update request received or generated by the processing unit triggers an update operation which comprises appending an update enabling record to a sequence of update records in the log region, writing new program code to the memory unit, and appending an update completion record to a sequence of update records. Write access to the log region is disabled if a fault is detected in the SoC during the update operation.

System on chip and method of updating program code on a system on chip

A scheduling module arranged to schedule the transmission of data from a plurality of data sources over a serial communication interface. The scheduling module comprises a register array and is arranged to selectively couple one of the data sources to the serial communication interface based at least partly on a source identifier value stored within a currently selected register within the register array. The scheduling module is further arranged to select a next sequential register within the register array upon receipt of a trigger signal.

Scheduling module and method thereof

There is provided a semiconductor wafer comprising a plurality of replicated IC modules. Each replicated IC module is capable of forming an individual IC die. The semiconductor wafer further comprises inter-module cross-wafer electrical connections, and the replicated IC modules are further arranged to be cut into IC dies comprising multiple replicated IC modules. There is further provided a method of fabricating an IC die. The method comprises fabricating such a semiconductor wafer, determining a required configuration of replicated IC modules, identifying inter-module boundaries along which to cut the semiconductor wafer to achieve the required configuration of replicated IC modules, and cutting the semiconductor wafer along the identified inter-module boundaries to produce at least one IC die comprising the required configuration of replicated IC modules.

Semiconductor wafer and method of fabricating an IC die

An apparatus and method for monitoring general purpose input output, GPIO, signals at GPIO pins of a GPIO port of a system on chip, SoC. The apparatus comprises a first checksum generation unit adapted to generate a first checksum on the basis of GPIO bits stored in GPIO registers of the SoC, being connected via corresponding input output, IO, pad circuits to provide analog GPIO signals at the GPIO pins. A second checksum generation unit is adapted to generate a second checksum on the basis of the analog GPIO signals at the GPIO pins representing the GPIO bits. Checker logic is adapted to compare the first checksum generated by the first checksum generation unit with a second checksum generated by the second checksum generation unit.

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North Ayrshire, United Kingdom

Robert Freddie Moran