Low-power USB superspeed device with 8-bit payload and 9-bit frame NRZI encoding for replacing 8/10-bit encoding

• US 8,166,221 B2
• Filed: 07/06/2010
• Issued: 04/24/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Super Talent Technology, Corporation
• Original Assignee: Super Talent Electronics, Inc.
• Inventors: Lee, Charles C., Yu, Frank, Ma, Abraham C., Ni, Jim Chin-Nan, Chen, Shimon
• Primary Examiner(s): Tsai, Henry
• Assistant Examiner(s): Borromeo, Juanito
• Application Number:
  US12/831,160
• Publication Number:
  US 20100275037A1
• Time in Patent Office: 658 Days
• Field of Search: 710/74
• US Class Current: 710/74
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/385 for adaptation of a particular data processing system to different peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 16/102 External programming circuits, e.g. EPROM programmers; In-circuit programming or reprogramming; EPROM emulators
• 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: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A Low-power flash-memory device uses a modified Universal-Serial-Bus (USB) 3.0 Protocol to reduce power consumption. The bit clock is slowed to reduce power and the need for pre-emphasis when USB cable lengths are short in applications. Data efficiency is improved by eliminating the 8/10-bit encoder and instead encoding sync and framing bytes as 9-bit symbols. Data bytes are expanded by bit stuffing only when a series of six ones occurs in the data. Header and payload data is transmitted as nearly 8-bits per data byte while framing is 9-bits per symbol, much less than the standard 10 bits per byte. Low-power link layers, physical layers, and scaled-down protocol layers are used. A card reader converter hub allows USB hosts to access low-power USB devices. Only one flash device is accessed, reducing power compared with standard USB broadcasting to multiple devices.

Claims

1. A low-power Universal-Serial-Bus (USB) device comprising:

a transmit pair for sending data to a host;

a receive pair for receiving data from the host;

a low-power physical layer that comprises;

a set of two pairs of differential serial buses, a first pair bus with a first pin carry+signal and a second pin carry−

signal, and a second pair differential serial bus with a first pin carry+signal and a second pin carry−

signal, wherein the set of two pairs of differential serial buses comprises the receive pair and the transmit pair;

a driver for driving the transmit pair with a transmit data stream;

a bit clock for clocking bits of the transmit data stream;

a parallel-to-serial converter, clocked by the bit clock, for converting data bytes for transmission to serial data for transmission by the driver;

a receiver for detecting signal transitions on the receive pair;

a receive clock recovery circuit, coupled to the receiver, for generating a received bit clock from the signal transitions detected by the receiver;

a sync pattern detector for detecting sync patterns received by the receiver;

a serial-to-parallel converter, clocked by the received bit clock, for converting the extracted data stream to received data bytes;

an elastic buffer for storing the received data bytes;

a low-power link layer, coupled to the low-power physical layer, for generating and processing link control words for controlling link power and for link training; and

a scaled-down protocol layer for pointing to headers and payloads in a memory buffer for transfer to the low-power link layer;

a flash memory for storing data in non-volatile memory; and

a RAM buffer coupled to the scaled-down protocol layer, for storing output parallel words read from the flash memory by a flash interface, and for storing input parallel words before writing to the flash memory by the flash interface; and

a microcontroller coupled to receive addresses, commands, and data from the scaled-down protocol layer, for generating flash commands for accessing the flash memory, the microcontroller generating a not-yet signal that is transmitted to the host over the transmit pair when the RAM buffer does not yet contain requested data that is waiting to be read from the flash memory,

whereby the not-yet signal is transmitted over the transmit pair when the requested data is waiting to be read from the flash memory.

2. The low-power USB device of claim 1 wherein the low-power physical layer further comprises:

a sync pattern generator, in the low-power physical layer, for generating 9-bit symbols representing framing patterns;

a bit stuffer for inserting a stuffed bit causing a signal transition on the transmit pair, the bit stuffer inserting the stuffed bit into a data stream after a predetermined number of bits that do not cause the signal transition to occur in a sequence;

a NRZI encoder, receiving the data stream and the stuffed bit from the bit stuffer, and receiving the 9-bit symbols from the sync pattern generator, for generating transmit data applied to the driver in a Not-Return-to-Zero-Inverse (NRZI) format;

a NRZI decoder for generating a received data stream from the signal transitions detected by the receiver; and

a stuffing remover for removing stuffed bits from the received data stream to generate an extracted data stream.

3. The low-power USB device of claim 2 wherein the low-power physical layer further comprises:

a clock divider, receiving a core clock, for reducing a frequency of the core clock to generate the bit clock, wherein the bit clock operates at a lower frequency than a bit clock for a standard USB protocol.

4. The low-power USB device of claim 3 wherein the low-power USB device is

embedded on a same printed-circuit board (PCB) as the host, wherein the low-power USB device is an embedded device.

5. The low-power USB device of claim 3 further comprising:

a data-out pipe, coupled to receive data packets from the scaled-down protocol layer, for storing data packets received from the host over the receive pair;

a data-in pipe, coupled to send data packets to the scaled-down protocol layer, for storing data packets for transmission to the host over the transmit pair.

6. The low-power USB device of claim 5 further comprising:

a command pipe, coupled to receive commands from the scaled-down protocol layer, for storing commands received from the host over the receive pair;

a status pipe, coupled to send status messages commands to the scaled-down protocol layer, for storing status messages for transmission to the host over the transmit pair.

7. The low-power USB device of claim 5 further comprising:

a chaining direct-memory access (DMA) engine, programmed by the scaled-down protocol layer to transfer headers and payloads between the low-power link layer and the memory buffer.

8. The low-power USB device of claim 5 wherein the predetermined number of bits that do not cause the signal transition comprises six bits each having a value of logical one.

9. The low-power USB device of claim 3 further comprising:

a low-frequency periodic signal generator, receiving the bit clock, for generating a low-frequency periodic signal;

a mux, receiving the low-frequency periodic signal and receiving the transmit data from the NRZI encoder, for applying the low-frequency periodic signal to the driver when a power-down mode is enabled, and for applying the transmit data to the driver when the power-down mode is not enabled.

10. The low-power USB device of claim 9 wherein the flash memory comprises a plurality of Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) and wherein an interface of the plurality of NVM is a serialized double data rate data input and output, which utilizes a data strobe signal to qualify the data access, without a clock input to the plurality of NVM.

11. The low-power USB device of claim 9 further comprising:

an encryptor/decryptor, coupled to a flash memory controller, for encrypting data in payloads before writing the payloads to the flash memory, and for decrypting payloads read from the flash memory before transfer to the memory buffer.

12. A Universal-Serial-Bus (USB) low-power host comprising:

a host processor for executing instructions;

a main memory for storing data;

an Input-Output processor, coupled to the host processor, for accessing peripherals on a peripheral bus;

a host low-power USB port connected to a first pair and to a second pair of lines;

a host simplified low-power USB controller for accessing a low-power USB device;

wherein the host simplified low-power USB controller comprises;

a host low-power physical layer coupled to the host low-power USB port;

a host low-power link layer coupled to the host low-power physical layer;

a host scaled-down protocol layer coupled to the host low-power link layer;

wherein the USB low-power host suspends sending serial packets to a low-power USB flash device during a low-power suspend mode, the USB low-power host not polling the low-power USB device in response to a not-yet signal sent by the low-power USB flash device to reduce power consumption of the USB low-power host.

13. The USB low-power host of claim 12 wherein the first pair is a transmit pair for the low-power host and the first pair is a receive pair for the low-power USB flash device;

wherein the second pair is the transmit pair for the low-power host and the second pair is the receive pair for the low-power USB flash device;

wherein the device low-power physical layer and the host low-power physical layer each comprise;

a driver for driving the transmit pair;

a bit stuffer for inserting a stuffed bit causing a signal transition on the transmit pair, the bit stuffer inserting the stuffed bit into a data stream after a predetermined number of bits that do not cause the signal transition occur in a sequence.

14. The USB low-power host of claim 13 wherein the device low-power physical layer and the host low-power physical layer each further comprise:

a sync pattern generator, for generating 9-bit framing symbols representing framing patterns; and

a NRZI encoder, receiving the data stream and the stuffed bit from the bit stuffer, and receiving the 9-bit framing symbols from the sync pattern generator, for generating transmit data applied to the driver in a Not-Return-to-Zero-Inverse (NRZI) format.

15. The USB low-power host of claim 14 wherein the device low-power physical layer and the host low-power physical layer each further comprise:

a bit clock, applied to the NRZI encoder and the bit stuffer, for clocking bits of the data stream;

a clock divider, receiving a core clock, for reducing a frequency of the core clock to generate the bit clock, wherein the bit clock operates at a lower frequency than a bit clock for a standard USB protocol;

a receiver for detecting signal transitions on the receive pair;

a sync pattern detector for detecting sync patterns received by the receiver;

a NRZI decoder for generating a received data stream from the signal transitions detected by the receiver;

a stuffing remover for removing stuffed bits from the received data stream to generate an extracted data stream;

a receive clock recovery circuit, coupled to the receiver, for generating a received bit clock from the signal transitions detected by the receiver;

a serial-to-parallel converter, clocked by the received bit clock, for converting the extracted data stream to received data bytes; and

an elastic buffer for storing the received data bytes.

16. The USB low-power host of claim 13 wherein the device low-power link layer and the host low-power link layer each comprise link means for generating and processing link control words for controlling link power and for link training;

wherein the device scaled-down protocol layer and the host scaled-down protocol layer each comprise chaining direct-memory access (DMA) means for pointing to headers and payloads in a memory buffer for transfer to the low-power link layer.

17. The USB low-power host of claim 13 wherein the low-power host further comprises:

a host USB port connected to a third pair and to a fourth pair of lines;

a host USB controller, coupled to the host USB port and to the Input-Output processor, for accessing a plurality of USB devices connected to the host USB port;

wherein the host USB controller comprises;

a host physical layer coupled to the host USB port;

a host link layer coupled to the host physical layer;

a host protocol layer coupled to the host link layer;

whereby the low-power host connects to the plurality of USB devices through the host USB port and to the low-power USB flash device through the device low-power USB port.

18. The USB low-power host of claim 17 wherein 8-bit stuffed bytes and 9-bit framing symbols are transmitted over the first pair of lines when the low-power host reads the low-power USB flash device and wherein the host USB controller is a USB 3.0 controller and wherein the host simplified low-power USB controller is not fully compatible with USB 3.0.

19. The USB low-power host of claim 13 wherein the low-power USB flash device comprises a single flash device;

wherein the host low-power USB port is connected to only one flash device;

wherein the first pair connects only to the host low-power USB port and to the device low-power USB port;

wherein the second pair connects only to the host low-power USB port and to the device low-power USB port,

whereby the host low-power USB port has only a single endpoint flash device.

20. A low-power card reader comprising:

a Universal-Serial-Bus (USB) port for connecting to a host over a receive pair and a transmit pair of lines;

wherein the receive pair and the transmit pair together comprise a set of two pairs of differential serial buses, a first pair bus with a first pin carry+signal and a second pin carry−

signal, and a second pair differential serial bus with a first pin carry+signal and a second pin carry−

signal;

a physical layer coupled to the USB port to receive a received data stream from the receive pair, and to transmit a transmit data stream to the transmit pair;

wherein the physical layer further comprises;

an 8/10-bit encoder/decoder for converting 10-bit symbols from the received data stream into 8-bit received data bytes, and for converting 8-bit transmit data bytes into 10-bit transmit symbols to form the transmit data stream;

a descrambler for descrambling the 8-bit received data bytes and for scrambling the 8-bit transmit data bytes;

a cyclical-redundancy-check (CRC) generator/checker for generating a CRC for the 8-bit transmit data bytes, and for checking a CRC for the 8-bit received data bytes;

a link layer, coupled to the physical layer, for processing link control words received from the host over the receive pair, for controlling link power and link training;

a command buffer, coupled to the link layer, for storing commands and data passed through the link layer;

a low-power link layer, coupled to the command buffer;

a low-power physical layer, coupled to the low-power link layer, the low-power physical layer comprising;

a sync pattern generator for generating 9-bit symbols representing framing patterns;

a bit stuffer for inserting a stuffed bit causing a signal transition on a flash pair of lines, the bit stuffer inserting the stuffed bit into a flash data stream after a predetermined number of bits that do not cause the signal transition occur in a sequence;

a NRZI encoder, receiving the flash data stream and the stuffed bit from the bit stuffer, and receiving the 9-bit symbols from the sync pattern generator, for generating flash data in a Not-Return-to-Zero-Inverse (NRZI) format;

a RAM buffer coupled to a scaled-down protocol layer, for storing output parallel words read from a flash memory by a flash interface, and for storing input parallel words before writing to the flash memory by the flash interface; and

a microcontroller coupled to receive addresses, commands, and data from the scaled-down protocol layer, for generating flash commands for accessing the flash memory, the microcontroller generating a not-yet signal that is transmitted to the host over the transmit pair when the RAM buffer does not yet contain requested data that is waiting to be read from the flash memory,

whereby the not-yet signal is transmitted over the transmit pair when the requested data is waiting to be read from the flash memory.

21. The low-power card reader of claim 20 further comprising:

a read-only memory (ROM) for storing device-control instructions;

a device processor for executing the device-control instructions;

a random-access memory (RAM) buffer for storing data for transfer; and

a direct-memory access (DMA) engine, programmed by the device processor, for transferring data between the RAM buffer and the physical layer, the link layer, the command buffer, the low-power physical layer, and a flash memory controller.

22. The low-power card reader of claim 20 wherein the link layer further comprises:

a sequence number generator for generating sequence numbers for link packets;

a CRC generator/checker for generating and checking link CRC'"'"'s;

a link power manager, responsive to link control words from the host, for managing link power on the transmit pair; and

a link trainer, responsive to link training patterns from the host, for configuring the receive pair and the transmit pair.