Adapter for interfacing an insertable/removable digital memory apparatus to a host data part

• US 5,815,426 A
• Filed: 03/25/1997
• Issued: 09/29/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Winbond Electronics Corporation
• Original Assignee: Nexcom Technology, Inc. (Uphill Investment Co.)
• Inventors: Wong, David K., Jigour, Robin J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nelms, David C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): HO, HOAI V
• Application Number:
  US08/823,937
• Time in Patent Office: 553 Days
• Field of Search: 365/51, 365/52, 365/63, 365/244
• US Class Current: 365/51
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/409 Mechanical coupling back panels H05K7/1438
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07732 the record carrier having a housing or construction similar to well-known portable memory devices, such as SD cards, USB or memory sticks housings for electrical equipment in general, see H05K5/02
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07741 comprising a first part operating as a regular record carrier and a second attachable part that changes the functional appearance of said record carrier, e.g. a contact-based smart card with an adapter part which, when attached to the contact card makes the contact card function as a non-contact card
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 19/07743 External electrical contacts
• CPC Class Codes: G06K 7/0021 for reading/sensing record carriers having surface contacts
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 2216/30 Reduction of number of input/output pins by using a serial interface to transmit or receive addresses or data, i.e. serial access memory
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 5/066 Means for reducing external access-lines for a semiconductor memory clip, e.g. by multiplexing at least address and data signals
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Each device of a family of removable digital media devices (310, 320, 330, 340, 350 and 360) may be plugged into a host to permits the host to store data in it or to retrieve data from it. The form factors of the digital media devices in the family and the connector system used by the digital media devices are compact for minimizing the volume of space occupied in portable devices and for easy storage. Some embodiments (310, 320, 330, 350 and 360) provide an elongated compact form factor that provides easy and firm grasping for insertion and removal. The digital media devices of the family have respective body portions (312, 322, 332, 342, 352 and 362) preferably of a rigid or semi-rigid material. Preferably, the digital media devices of the family use serial memory requiring few power and signal lines, so that few electrical contacts are required. In particular, a small number of durable contact pads form the contact arrays (314, 324, 334, 344, 354 and 364) on the digital media devices, which in conjunction with corresponding contact pads mounted into a suitable socket provide for easy and convenient insertion and removal and for robust and reliable electrical contact over a long insertion lifetime. Preferably, the digital media devices of the family incorporate flash memory, which permits low voltage operation, low power consumption, and high capacity non-volatile data storage. Preferably, the digital media devices of the family are fabricated using surface mount techniques (310 and 320) or particularly inexpensive "Chip on Board" techniques (330, 340, 350 and 360). The digital media devices interface to the host either directly or through adapters. Access is handled either by a dedicated controller or other logic residing in the adapter or on the host, or by software running on the host.

Claims

1. An adapter for interfacing an insertable/removable serial memory device to a parallel port of a host, comprising:

a parallel port connector having a plurality of electrical contacts designated data;

a socket for receiving the insertable/removable serial memory device, the socket having respective contacts designated clock, data-in, data-out, first chip select, and second chip select; and

a circuit mapping the clock contact, the data-in contact, the data-out contact, the first chip select contact, and the second chip select contact of the socket to respective data contacts of the parallel port connector.

2. An adapter as in claim 1 wherein the contacts of the socket are flat surface contact pads.

3. An adapter as in claim 1 further comprising an additional contact in the socket designated write protect, wherein the mapping circuit further maps the write protect contact to a data contact of the parallel port connector.

4. An adapter as in claim 3 wherein the contacts of the socket are flat surface contact pads.

5. An adapter as in claim 4 wherein the contact pads of the socket are arranged in an array of two rows and four columns.

6. An adapter as in claim 5 wherein the contact pad in array position (1,1) is designated power, the contact pad in array position (1,2) is designated first chip select, the contact pad in array position (1,3) is designated clock, the contact pad in array position (1,4) is designated second chip select, the contact pad in array position (2,1 ) is designated ground, the contact pad in array position (2,2) is designated write protect, the contact pad in array position (2,3) is designated data-out, and the contact pad in array position (2,4) is designated data-in.

7. An adapter as in claim 6 wherein the parallel port connector is compliant with a personal computer parallel port standard and comprises a plurality of numbered pins, and the mapping circuit couples the first chip select contact pad in the array position (1,2) to pin 9 of the parallel port connector, the clock contact pad in array position (1,3) to pin 2 of the parallel port connector, the second chip select contact pad in array position (1,4) to pin 4 of the parallel port connector, the write protect contact pad in array position (2,2) to pins 5 and 10 of the parallel port connector, the data-out contact pad in array position (2,3) to pin 11 of the parallel port connector, and the data-in contact pad in array position (2,4) to pin 3 of the parallel port connector.

8. An adapter as in claim 1 further comprising:

a first additional contact in the socket designated power;

a second additional contact in the socket designated ground; and

a voltage regulator having a power node coupled to the power contact of the socket and a ground node coupled to the ground contact of the socket.

9. An adapter as in claim 8 further comprising a DC power input connector having a power contact and a ground contact, the power contact of the DC power input being coupled to the power node of the voltage regulator, and the ground contact of the DC power input being coupled to the ground node of the voltage regulator.

10. An adapter as in claim 8 further comprising:

an AC-to-DC converter having AC power inputs, a DC power output coupled to the power node of the voltage regulator, and a ground node coupled to the ground node of the voltage regulator; and

an AC power input connector coupled to the AC power inputs of the AC-to-DC converter.

11. An adapter as in claim 1 further comprising:

a first additional contact in the socket designated power;

a second additional contact in the socket designated ground; and

a selectable-voltage regulator having a power node coupled to the power contact of the socket, a ground node coupled to the ground contact of the socket, and a voltage select node coupled to a data contact of the parallel port connector.

12. An adapter as in claim 4 further comprising:

a DC power input connector having a power contact and a ground contact, the power contact of the DC power input being coupled to the power node of the voltage regulator, and the ground contact of the DC power input being coupled to the ground node of the voltage regulator;

an AC-to-DC converter having AC power inputs, a DC power output coupled to the power node of the voltage regulator, and a ground node coupled to the ground node of the voltage regulator; and

an AC power input connector coupled to the AC power inputs of the AC-to-DC converter;

wherein the contact pads of the socket are arranged in an array of two rows and four columns, the contact pad in array position (1,1) being designated power, the contact pad in array position (1,2) being designated first chip select, the contact pad in array position (1,3) being designated clock, the contact pad in array position (1,4) being designated second chip select, the contact pad in array position (2,1) being designated ground, the contact pad in array position (2,2) being designated write protect, the contact pad in array position (2,3) being designated data-out, and the contact pad in array position (2,4) being designated data-in;

wherein the parallel port connector is compliant with a personal computer parallel port standard and comprises a plurality of numbered pins, pin 8 being coupled to the voltage select node of the power regulator; and

wherein the mapping circuit couples the first chip select contact pad in the array position (1,2) to pin 9 of the parallel port connector, the clock contact pad in array position (1,3) to pin 2 of the parallel port connector, the second chip select contact pad in array position (1,4) to pin 4 of the parallel port connector, the write protect contact pad in array position (2,2) to pins 5 and 10 of the parallel port connector, the data-out contact pad in array position (2,3) to pin 11 of the parallel port connector, and the data-in contact pad in array position (2,4) to pin 3 of the parallel port connector.

13. An adapter for interfacing an insertable/removable digital memory device to a data port of a host, comprising:

a host data port connector;

a connector for receiving the insertable/removable digital memory device;

a circuit mapping contacts of the insertable/removable digital memory device connector to contacts of the host data port connector; and

a selectable-voltage voltage regulator having power and ground nodes coupled to particular contacts of the insertable/removable digital memory device connector and a voltage select node coupled to a contact of the host data port connector.

14. An adapter as in claim 13 further comprising a DC power input connector having a power contact and a ground contact, the power contact of the DC power input being coupled to the power node of the voltage regulator, and the ground contact of the DC power input being coupled to the ground node of the voltage regulator.

15. An adapter as in claim 13 further comprising:

an AC-to-DC converter having AC power inputs, a DC power output coupled to the power node of the voltage regulator, and a ground node coupled to the ground node of the voltage regulator; and

an AC power input connector coupled to the AC power inputs of the AC-to-DC converter.

16. An adapter as in claim 13 wherein the voltage regulator selects from a three volt DC output and a five volt DC output in accordance with a signal on the voltage select node.

17. An adapter as in claim 13 wherein the host port connector is a parallel port connector, and the insertable/removable digital memory device is a digital media device.