Peripheral buses for integrated circuit

• US 6,064,626 A
• Filed: 07/31/1998
• Issued: 05/16/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Arm Ltd. (United Kingdom) (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Arm Ltd. (United Kingdom) (SoftBank Group Corp.)
• Inventors: Stevens, Ashley Miles
• Primary Examiner(s): Fears, Terrell W.
• Application Number:
  US09/127,605
• Time in Patent Office: 655 Days
• Field of Search: 365/230.01, 365/230.03, 365/233, 365/189.04
• US Class Current: 365/233.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/405 where the bridge performs a synchronising function
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

The present invention provides an integrated circuit comprising a system bus to which a processor is connectable, and first and second peripheral buses to which peripheral units used by said processor are connected, the first peripheral bus operating at a higher clock speed than the second peripheral bus. Further, the integrated circuit comprises bridge logic for providing an interface between the system bus and the peripheral buses to enable signals to be passed between the system bus and the peripheral buses, the bridge logic comprising clock resynchronisation logic for synchronising the system bus and the peripheral buses.

Through the provision of first and second peripheral buses operating at different clock speeds, the integrated circuit of the present invention provides a great deal of flexibility for reducing the power consumption of the integrated circuit as compared with a similar integrated circuit having only one peripheral bus. Since the power consumption of each peripheral bus is proportional to the clock frequency and capacitance, significant power consumption savings can be realised by ensuring that each peripheral unit is connected to the slowest peripheral bus appropriate for that peripheral unit.

Claims

1. An integrated circuit comprising:

a system bus to which a processor is connectable;

first and second peripheral buses to which peripheral units used by said processor are connected, said first peripheral bus operating at a higher clock speed than said second peripheral bus;

bridge logic for providing an interface between said system bus and said peripheral buses to enable signals to be passed between said system bus and said peripheral buses, said bridge logic comprising clock resynchronisation logic for synchronising said system bus and said peripheral buses.

2. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said bridge logic comprises first and second bridge logic units, said first bridge logic unit being arranged to provide an interface between said system bus and said first peripheral bus, and said second bridge logic unit being arranged to provide an interface between said system bus and said second peripheral bus.

3. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 2, wherein said first peripheral bus is arranged to operate at the same clock speed as said system bus, and said clock resynchronisation logic is provided in said second bridge logic unit, but not in said first bridge logic unit.

4. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said first peripheral bus is arranged to operate at the same clock speed as said system bus.

5. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 4, wherein said first peripheral bus supports direct memory access (DMA), and peripheral units requiring DMA are connected to said first peripheral bus.

6. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein a number of said peripheral units require a common clock speed and are connected to said second peripheral bus, said second peripheral bus being arranged to operate at said common clock speed, thereby avoiding the requirement for separate clock resynchronisation logic to be provided at each of said number of peripheral units.

7. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said first and said second peripheral buses employ the same bus protocol, the system bus employs a different bus protocol, and the bridge logic includes protocol conversion logic for performing the necessary protocol conversion on signals passed between the system bus and the peripheral buses.

8. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said second peripheral bus operates at a clock speed chosen so as to enable a commonly used clock speed required by a number of said peripheral units to be generated.

9. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 8, wherein said second peripheral bus operates at a clock speed of 3.68 MHz.

10. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 1, further comprising one or more additional peripheral buses arranged to operate at clock speeds different to the clock speeds of said first and said second peripheral buses.

11. An integrated circuit as claimed in claim 1, wherein said integrated circuit is a microcontroller.