The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 09, 1986
Filed:
Dec. 06, 1982
Charles W Hoffner, II, Naperville, IL (US);
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
Disclosed is a method and apparatus for interfacing N bit-serial communication channels to an N-bit parallel communication channel. The serial channels are interfaced simultaneously, i.e., during a single bit time, with the parallel channel by an interface unit that is shared by the serial channels. The interface unit is microprocessor based. To service all serial channels simultaneously, the microprocessor's interface program divides each bit interval into 2N time slots and allocates two time slots per bit interval to each of the N channels, one time slot for functions associted with receipt of bits from the serial channel and transmittal thereof on the parallel channel, and one time slot for functions associated with receipt of data from the parallel channel and transmittal thereof on the serial channel. At the beginning of each time slot the program causes an updated word to be transmitted to the serial channels, one bit to each channel, and a sample word to be received from the serial channels, one bit sample from each channel. The program identifies the samples of centers of the bits received from the serial channels and uses these as the received bit values.