Sideband signaling in Universal Serial Bus (USB) Type-C communication link allows multiple protocols that are tunneled through a USB link, where sideband signals may be provided through the sideband use (SBU) pins. Further, the SBU pins may be transitioned between different modes of sideband signals. In particular, signals in an initial mode may indicate a need or desire transition to a second mode. After a negotiation, linked devices agree to transition, the two devices may transition to the second mode. By providing this inband sideband signaling that allows mode changes, more protocols can be tunneled with accompanying sideband signaling and flexibility of the USB link is expanded.

Representative apparatus, method, and system embodiments are disclosed for configurable computing. A representative system includes an interconnection network; a processor; and a plurality of configurable circuit clusters. Each configurable circuit cluster includes a plurality of configurable circuits arranged in an array; a synchronous network coupled to each configurable circuit of the array; and an asynchronous packet network coupled to each configurable circuit of the array. A representative configurable circuit includes a configurable computation circuit and a configuration memory having a first, instruction memory storing a plurality of data path configuration instructions to configure a data path of the configurable computation circuit; and a second, instruction and instruction index memory storing a plurality of spoke instructions and data path configuration instruction indices for selection of a master synchronous input, a current data path configuration instruction, and a next data path configuration instruction for a next configurable computation circuit.

An asynchronous interface according to the disclosure includes: a transmission circuit that transmits, with data of W bits as one word, the data on the one-word basis, and transmits an REQ signal whose value differs by one bit per transmission of the data of one word; a reception circuit including a reception buffer having a reception buffer word count of n (n is an integer of 4 or more), in which the reception circuit receives the data on the one-word basis, and transmits an ACK signal whose value differs by one bit per reception of the data of one word; a data signal line that has a bit width of W, and transfers the data from the transmission circuit to the reception circuit; an REQ signal line that has a bit width of log.sub.2 (n) or more, and transfers the REQ signal from the transmission circuit to the reception circuit; and an ACK signal line that has a bit width of log.sub.2(n) or more, and transfers the ACK signal from the reception circuit to the transmission circuit.

A data processing system includes multiple powered domains which communicate using a bridge 10. The bridge 10 includes first bridge circuitry 14 within a first power domain and second bridge circuitry 16 within a second power domain. The first bridge circuitry 14 and the second bridge circuitry 16 exchange intra-bridge power control signals which serve to control management of the communication channel through the bridge 10 to adopt a communication open state or a communication quiesced state independent of whether either side of the bridge is in a power-active state or a power-inactive state.

In a data processing device including two sets of circuit pairs which are respectively duplicated in two clock domains which are asynchronous to each other, an asynchronous transfer circuit that transfers a payload signal is provided between the two sets of circuit pairs. The asynchronous transfer circuit includes two sets of a pair of bridge circuits which are respectively connected to the two sets of circuit pairs, and asynchronously transfers the payload signal and a control signal indicating a timing at which the payload signal is stable on a reception side. The two sets of a pair of bridge circuits and the payload signals can be duplicated, but the control signal is not duplicated, and the received payload signal is used for timing control to supply an expected same time difference, to the pair of duplicated circuits. This enables asynchronous transfer between circuits duplicated in the asynchronous clock domains.

An example computing system includes a baseboard management controller (BMC), a motherboard, and a daughterboard communicatively coupled to the motherboard. The BMC includes a serial interface. The daughterboard includes a universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) terminal, a bridging chip, and a microcontroller communicatively coupled to the BMC via the bridging chip. The BMC establishes a serial connection, through the serial interface and the UART terminal, with the microcontroller.

A communication system with serial ports for automatically identifying device types and communication protocols and method thereof are described. The communication system and method are capable of automatically identifying the device types and communication protocols of interface devices with different serial device numbers which are disposed in the serial port architecture. Furthermore, the drivers are capable of performing a serial communication based on the serial port architecture for matching the device types and communication protocols correspondingly, thereby reducing the development and manufacturing costs of communication system. Moreover, the user of an application program module only needs to provide the device numbers and data control information without the cooperation of hardware circuits and manufacturing technique of the interface devices to complete the automatic control and monitoring tasks of the interface devices to increase the utilization convenience.

An electronic circuit system includes a main device that generates first and second strobe signals and a clock signal, a first peripheral device that uses the first strobe signal to generate a first output signal in a first lane in response to the clock signal, and a second peripheral device that uses the second strobe signal to generate a second output signal in a second lane in response to the clock signal. The main device determines if the first peripheral device is coupled to the main device through the first lane based on the first output signal. The main device determines if the second peripheral device is coupled to the main device through the second lane based on the second output signal. The main device also has the ability to detect if a peripheral device is faulty and to select a valid configuration of peripheral devices.

An asynchronous interface according to the disclosure includes: a transmission circuit that transmits, with data of W bits as one word, the data on the one-word basis, and transmits an REQ signal whose value differs by one bit per transmission of the data of one word; a reception circuit including a reception buffer having a reception buffer word count of n (n is an integer of 4 or more), in which the reception circuit receives the data on the one-word basis, and transmits an ACK signal whose value differs by one bit per reception of the data of one word; a data signal line that has a bit width of W, and transfers the data from the transmission circuit to the reception circuit; an REQ signal line that has a bit width of log.sub.2(n) or more, and transfers the REQ signal from the transmission circuit to the reception circuit; and an ACK signal line that has a bit width of log.sub.2(n) or more, and transfers the ACK signal from the reception circuit to the transmission circuit.

A method for the transmission of data via an Inter Communication Link (ICL) to a receiver unit is provided. The method identifies data to be transmitted in a memory cell of a data storage. The method continues by extracting the address of the memory cell and extracting the data word from the identified data. The method continues by calculating a CRC (cyclic redundancy check) checksum from the extracted address of the memory cell and the extracted data word. The method continues by generating a data packet to be sent by appending a start frame delimiter and a stop frame delimiter to the extracted address of the memory cell, the extracted data word and the calculated CRC checksum. The method continues by sending the data packet.