CONCURRENT FLASHING OF DATA PROCESSING UNITS IN HIERARCHICAL NETWORKS

• US 20100115120A1
• Filed: 06/18/2005
• Published: 05/06/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/11/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Staiger, Dieter E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,856,370 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/329 in the application layer [OSI layer 7]

Abstract

The present invention provides an electronic network with a plurality of processing units that are arranged in sub-networks in a hierarchical and heterogeneous way. The network features a data stream controller that is coupled to any one of the sub-networks and that is adapted to transmit data to any one of the sub-networks. Further, the network has a data transmission port that is coupled to the data stream controller and that provides a high-speed data transmission to the data stream controller. The data stream controller serves to concurrently provide data and in particular flashing data to the various control units in a way that is adapted to the communication protocol and the data transfer rate of each sub-network. The invention therefore provides fast and autonomous flashing of a plurality of processing units, such as electronic control units in a network embedded system such as commonly used in the framework of automotive electronic networks. The data stream controller and its coupling to the various sub-networks provides a non-hierarchical and direct access to any sub-network and/or control unit of a heterogeneous and hierarchical network.

Claims

1. A hierarchical network (200) of processing units (122, . . . , 136) being arranged in at least a first and a second sub-network (114, 116, 118, 129, 140), the hierarchical network comprising:

a data stream controller (202) being coupled to any one of the sub-networks and being adapted to transmit data to any one of the at least first and second sub-networks,

a data transmission port (204) being coupled to the data stream controller, the data transmission port providing feeding of data into the data stream controller.

2. The network (200) according to claim 1, wherein the data transmission port (204) is coupled to the data stream controller via a high-speed data transmission line and wherein the data steam controller has a dynamic memory (232).

3. The network (200) according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140) have different data transmission properties and make use of different communication protocols.

4. The network (200) according to any one of the claims 1 to 3, wherein the data stream controller (202) is adapted to feed data into any one of the processing units (122, . . . , 136) of the at least first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140).

5. The network (200) according to any one of the claims 1 to 4, wherein the data stream controller (202) is further adapted to control an at least first and second gateway controller (102, 104, 106, 108, 110) of the at least first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140).

6. The network (200) according to any one of the claims 1 to 5, wherein the data stream controller (202) is adapted to simultaneously flash the at least first and second gateway controllers (102, 104, 106, 108, 110) and/or processing units (122, . . . , 136) of the at least first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140) or to flash the at least first and second gateway controllers and/or processing units within partially overlapping time intervals.

7. The network (200) according to any one of the claims 1 to 6, wherein the data stream controller (202) is adapted to transmit a first data to the at least first sub-network (114, 116, 118, 129, 140) by means of the first sub-network'"'"'s data transmission protocol and by means of the first sub-network'"'"'s data transmission rate.

8. The network (200) according to any one of the claims 1 to 7, wherein the data stream controller (202) is adapted to gather status information of the at least first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140).

9. The network (200) according to any one of the claims 5 to 8, wherein the data stream controller (202) is adapted to replace the functionality of the at least first and/or second gateway controllers (102, 104, 106, 108, 110) if the at least first and/or second gateway controllers fail.

10. The network (200) according to any one of the claims 1 to 9, wherein the processing units (122, . . . , 136) are implemented as electronic control units of a vehicle.

11. The network (200) according to any one of the claims 1 to 10, wherein the at least first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140) feature a straight bus and/or a star network and/or a ring-bus network topology and make use of a CAN C and/or CAN B and/or LIN and/or FlexRay and/or MOST and/or FireWire data transmission standards.

12. A data stream controller (202) for transmitting data to an at least first and second sub-network (114, 116, 118, 129, 140) of a hierarchical network (200) of processing units (122, . . . , 136), the data stream controller being coupled to any one of the sub-networks and to a data transmission port (204), the data stream controller comprising:

a storage (232) for storing data being received via the data transmission port,

a control unit (224) for feeding the received data into the storage and for providing the at least first and second sub-networks with an at least first and second portion of the data.

13. The data stream controller (202) according to claim 12, further comprising a decoder module (236) for decoding the at least first and second portions of the data with respect to a data transmission rate and with respect to a communication protocol of the at least first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140).

14. The data stream controller (202) according to claim 12 or 13, wherein the storage (232) is implemented by means of synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) or double data rate synchronous dynamic random access memory (DDR-SDRAM).

15. A method of flashing processing units (122, . . . , 136) of a hierarchical network (200) being divided into an at least first and second sub-network (114, 116, 118, 129, 140), the method of flashing comprising the steps of:

feeding of data into a data stream controller (202) by making use of a high-speed data transmission port (204) being coupled to the data stream controller,

flashing the processing units of at least one of the at least first and second sub-networks by means of the data stream controller being coupled to any one of the at least first and second sub-networks.

16. The method according to claim 15, further comprising flashing the processing units (122, . . . , 136) of the at least first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140) simultaneously or within partially overlapping time intervals.

17. The method according to claim 15 or 16, further comprising starting flashing of the processing units (122, . . . , 136) of at least one of the at least first and second sub-networks (114, 116, 118, 129, 140) prior to a termination of the feeding of the data into the data stream controller (202).

18. A computer program product for a data stream controller (202) of an hierarchical network of processing units (122, . . . , 136) being arranged in at least a first and a second sub-network (114, 116, 118, 129, 140), the data stream controller being coupled to any one of the sub-networks and to a data transmission port (204), the computer program product being operable to:

receive data via the data transmission port and to store the received data in a storage (232),

decode an at least first and second portion of the data with respect to data transmission rates and with respect to communication protocols of the at least first and second sub-networks,

transmit the at least first and second portions of the data to the at least first and second sub-networks.