A device, comprising: a main module; a plurality of secondary modules; and a data bus configured to enable data transmission between the main module and the plurality of secondary modules over a data line of the data bus; wherein each of the plurality of secondary modules is configured with a unique secondary address used by the main module to communicate with the respective secondary module over the data line, wherein the main module is operable to configure a first two or more of the plurality of secondary modules with a first common secondary address for simultaneous data transmission from the main module to the first two or more of the plurality of secondary modules over the data line.

According to one embodiment, a semiconductor device includes a device. The device includes a decoder, a generation circuit, a register, and a modifier. The decoder analyzes a command of a received packet. The generation circuit generates a unique device number in accordance with information in the packet. The register holds the generated unique device number. The modifier updates and outputs the packet. When a packet issued by a host is a command packet, among broadcast packets which return to the host through one or more devices, for determining the unique device number, the command packet includes parameters of an initial value and final value of device number.

A method and/or process of interface bridging device for providing a C physical layer (“C-PHY”) input output interface via a field programmable gate arrays (“FPGA”) is disclosed. The process, in one aspect, is capable of coupling a first wire of data lane 0 to a first terminal of first IO serializer of FPGA for receiving first data from a D-PHY transmitter of a first device and coupling a second wire of the data lane 0 to a second terminal of the first IO serializer of FPGA for receiving second data from the D-PHY transmitter. Upon activating a first scalable low-voltage signal to generate a first value on P channel and a second value on N channel in response to the first data and the second data, a first signal on first wire of trio 0 for a C-PHY output is generated based on the first value on the P channel.

A system includes a plurality of systems-on-a-chip (SoCs), connected by a network. The plurality of SoCs and the network are configured to operate as a single logical computing system. The plurality of SoCs may be configured to exchange local power information indicative of network activity occurring on their respective portions of the network. A given one of the plurality of SoCs may be configured to determine that a local condition for placing the respective portion of the network corresponding to the given SoC into a reduced power mode has been satisfied. The given SoC may be further configured to place the respective portion of the network into the reduced power mode in response to determining that a global condition for the reduced power mode is satisfied. The global condition may be assessed based upon current local power information for remaining ones of the plurality of SoCs.

Circuits and methods involve an integrated circuit (IC) device, a plurality of application-specific sub-circuits, and a plurality of instances of a measuring circuit. The application-specific sub-circuits are disposed within respective areas of the IC device. Each instance of the measuring circuit is associated with one of the application-specific sub-circuits and is disposed within a respective one of the areas of the device. Each instance of the measuring circuit further includes a ring oscillator and a register for storage of a value indicative of an interval of time. Each instance of the measuring circuit is configured to measure passage of the interval of time based on a first clock signal, count oscillations of an output signal of the ring oscillator during the interval of time, and output a value indicating a number of oscillations counted during the interval of time.

Systems, methods, apparatus and techniques are described that provide point-to-point capabilities without the expected increase in input/output pad usage. In some examples, point-to-point data lines are provided between a host and multiple slave devices and timing of communication is controlled using a clock signal shared by the multiple slave devices. An apparatus has a plurality of bus master circuits configured to control point-to-point communication with corresponding slave devices and a clock generation circuit configured to provide pulses in a serial bus clock signal when one or more bus master circuits are in an active state, and further to idle the serial bus clock signal when all bus master circuits are idle. Each bus master circuit may be configured to communicate with its corresponding slave device in accordance with the timing provided by the serial bus clock signal that is transmitted over a common clock line to each slave device.

A multi-chip module (MCM) includes a first integrated circuit (IC) chip to receive first data. The first IC chip includes a first transfer interface to transmit the first data off the first IC chip. A second IC chip includes an input interface to receive the first data from the first IC chip. The second IC chip includes switching circuitry to selectively forward the first data to one of a first output interface or a second output interface. The first output interface is communicatively coupled to a third IC chip, while the second output interface is configured to output the first data from the MCM.

A method for synchronous serial communication includes encoding, by a master device, a header field to be initially transmitted in a frame with a header identification code and a slave count value that defines a number of slave devices communicatively coupled to the master device. A plurality of address fields to be transmitted in the frame are also encoded by the master device. Each of the address fields corresponding to a different one the slave devices. A first of the address fields to be transmitted in the frame corresponds to a last of the slave devices to receive the header field, and a last of the address fields to be transmitted in the frame corresponds to a first of the slave devices to receive the header field. The frame is transmitted to the slave devices by the master device.

An embodiment method is disclosed for deriving an estimation value of a clock-error for a slave clock, wherein the slave clock is set at a nominal slave period and outputs a sequence of slave clock signals at an actual slave period, and wherein a difference between the actual slave period and the nominal slave period is approximated by the estimation value of the clock-error.

A sensor and a sensor network. The sensor comprises a switchable RC low-pass filter, an evaluation unit, a synchronization unit, and a two-wire interface. The two-wire interface is configured to be connected to a control device to receive an electrical supply voltage, provided by the control device, for supplying the sensor with electrical energy, to receive sync pulses superimposed on the supply voltage for synchronizing a data transmission from the control device, and to transmit data to the control device. The RC low-pass filter generates a reference signal by low-pass filtering an input signal, and to have a first time constant in a first mode and a second time constant in a second mode, wherein the second time constant is shorter than the first time constant. The evaluation unit stabilizes the reference signal by alternately switching the RC low-pass filter into the first mode and into the second mode.