NFC Communication with an Information Handling System Supplemented by a Management Controller and Advertised Virtual Tag Memory

• US 20150311957A1
• Filed: 04/23/2014
• Published: 10/29/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 04/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Dube, Shawn J., Ahmed, Syed S.
• Granted Patent: US 9,571,165 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/72 for local intradevice communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/77 for interrogation

Abstract

Near Field Communication (NFC) supports server information handling system management through communication between a mobile information handling system and a baseboard management controller. Enhanced transfer by NFC of management information is provided by manipulating the NFC tag memory assigned for information transfer with the aid of a microcontroller coordinating NFC transfers at the baseboard management controller, such as with coordinated storage operations at a tag memory an supporting processors/microcontrollers. The microcontroller manages tag memory and/or system memory so that the portable information handling system writes and reads information beyond the capabilities of unaided tag memory.

Claims

1. An information handling system comprising:

a chassis operable to support processing components;

a processor disposed in the chassis and operable to execute instructions for processing information;

memory disposed in the chassis and interfaced with the processor, the memory operable to store the instructions and information;

a management controller disposed in the chassis and interfaced with the processor, the management controller operable manage operational conditions associated with processing components within the chassis including at least the processor;

a near field communication (NFC) transceiver disposed in the chassis and operable to wirelessly communicate with an NFC device external to the chassis, the NFC transceiver having a tag memory that stores information to transmit to the external NFC device and information received from the external NFC device; and

a microcontroller interfacing the management controller with the near field communication transceiver, the microcontroller managing the tag memory to adapt the NFC transceiver communications to a selected of plural data transfer modes.

2. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the near field communication transceiver coordinates selection of a data transfer mode with the external NFC device by communicating a tag memory size that is different than the actual tag memory size.

3. The information handling system of claim 2 wherein the tag memory size comprises a virtual memory mapped to a physical address space external to the tag memory.

4. The information handling system of claim 3 wherein the virtual memory comprises a memory address and size for a predetermined range that the external NFC device interprets as the tag memory address and size.

5. The information handling system of claim 3 wherein the virtual memory comprises plural selectable address ranges, each of which is interpreted by the NFC device as the tag memory address range.

6. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the plural data transfer modes comprise a dual ported mode having the microcontroller reading and writing a first portion of tag memory concurrently with the NFC transceiver reading and writing a second portion of tag memory.

7. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the plural data transfer modes comprise a write forward mode having communication received at the NFC transceiver forwarded to a write address external to the tag memory without writing the communications to the tag memory.

8. The information handling system of claim 1 wherein the plural data transfer modes comprise a read forward mode having communications transmitted from the NFC transmitter by forwarding information from a read address external to the tag memory without storing the information in the tag memory.

9. A method for communication of information to a server information handling system management controller from an external information handling system having a near field communication (NFC) device, the method comprising:

exchanging NFC configuration information between the external NFC communication device and an NFC transceiver disposed in the server, the NFC transceiver having a tag memory, the configuration information including tag memory configuration information of the tag memory of the NFC transceiver indicating a selected of plural data transfer modes; and

communicating information between the external NFC communication device and the NFC transceiver according to the selected of the plural data transfer modes as indicated by the tag memory configuration information.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the tag memory configuration information comprises a tag memory size that is different than the actual tag memory size associated with the NFC transceiver.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the tag memory size comprises a virtual memory mapped to a physical address space external to the tag memory.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

interpreting the virtual memory at the external NFC communication device as the tag memory;

writing information to the virtual memory with the external NFC communication device as a tag memory write; and

sending the write information from the NFC transceiver to a microcontroller for writing to memory outside of the tag memory.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein sending the write information further comprises sending the write information from the external NFC communication device to the microcontroller without storing the information in the tag memory.

14. The method of claim 11 further comprising:

interpreting the virtual memory at the external NFC communication device as a tag memory;

reading information from the virtual memory with the external NFC communication device as a tag memory; and

sending the read information from a memory external to the tag memory, to a microcontroller, to the NFC transceiver and by an NFC communication to the external NFC communication device.

15. The method of claim 14 wherein sending the read information further comprises sending the read information from the microcontroller to the external NFC communication device without storing the read information in the tag memory.

16. A system for NFC transfers of information, the system comprising:

a portable information handling system having an NFC communication device and an NFC application stored in non-transitory memory, the NFC application operable to command the NFC communication device to send information to another NFC communication device according to configuration information shared with the other NFC communication device; and

a server baseboard management controller operable to manage operations of a server information handling system and having an NFC transceiver operable to communicate information stored in a tag memory, the NFC transceiver managed by a microcontroller;

wherein the microcontroller manages configuration information sent to the NFC communication device to represent the tag memory with configuration information that differs from the actual configuration of the tag memory.

17. The system of claim 16 wherein the actual tag memory configuration is a first memory size and the represented tag memory is greater than the actual memory size.

18. The system of claim 16 wherein the actual tag memory configuration is a memory location and the represented tag memory location is external to the actual tag memory.

19. The system of claim 16 further comprising a memory map managed by the microcontroller to dynamically remap memory locations of the tag memory for concurrent reads and writes sequentially performed through the tag memory addresses.

20. The system of claim 16 wherein the microcontroller is further operable to coordinate storage of information in association with NFC transfers by the NFC transceiver by use of memory external to the tag memory and without storing the information in the tag memory.