Address translation device

• US 7,444,453 B2
• Filed: 01/03/2006
• Issued: 10/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 01/03/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Lenovo International Limited (Lenovo Group Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ellison, Brandon Jon
• Primary Examiner(s): Knoll; Clifford H
• Application Number:
  US11/324,435
• Publication Number:
  US 20070156935A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,029 Days
• Field of Search: 710/106, 710/306, 710/311, 710/312, 710/314, 370/360
• US Class Current: 710/311
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4295 using an embedded synchronisation

Abstract

A method to facilitate I2C communication between a host device and a slave device where the slave device shares a common physical address with another slave device on the I2C bus. The method includes detecting an incoming address on the I2C bus, translating the incoming address to an outgoing address, and communicating data between the host device and the slave device where the outgoing address matches the physical address of the slave device. In this manner, the present invention avoids address conflicts between commonly addressed slave devices while reducing costs, components, and complexities traditionally associated with dynamic addressing techniques and other prior art solutions to address conflicts.

Claims

1. A method to facilitate communication over an I2C bus between a host device and a slave device, the method comprising:

detecting an incoming address of a data transmission at a translation device, the data transmission being received over an I2C bus from a host device, the data transmission intended for a first slave device connected to the translation device over an I2C bus, the first slave device sharing a common physical address with one or more other slave devices;

translating bits of the incoming address of the data transmission to an outgoing address, wherein the outgoing address matches the physical address in when the incoming address matches a translation device address of the translation device; and

communicating the outgoing address and data of the data transmission to the first slave device over the I2C bus, wherein the first slave device receives data preceded by the common physical address and ignores data preceded by an address other than the common physical address.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein translating further comprises flipping a binary bit of the incoming address to form the outgoing address in response to a mismatch between a binary bit of the incoming address and a binary bit of a translation device address.