Multiplex communications – Communication techniques for information carried in plural... – Assembly or disassembly of messages having address headers
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-29
2004-03-23
Kizou, Hassan (Department: 2662)
Multiplex communications
Communication techniques for information carried in plural...
Assembly or disassembly of messages having address headers
C709S232000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06711179
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a signal processing apparatus and a signal processing system, and more particularly, to a signal processing apparatus comprising upper, intermediate and lower processing layer processing sections, and a signal processing system for use in a packet communication system comprising two signal processing apparatuses connected with each other via a bus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, networking of computers has been rapidly advanced, and further, various kinds of computer peripheral units becomes commercially available. Accompanying with this, the connection states among computers and among a computer and various kinds of peripheral units become complicated. Also, the peripheral units become multifunctional, communication amounts between communication terminals increase, and a higher-speed more-convenient communication standard is therefore required.
In such circumstances, some interface standards of the next generation have been already proposed. Among them, the IEEE 1394 interface has been proposed as an interface for transferring data at a high speed among home digital devices and computers, and peripheral units. This interface standard has been proposed by the IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.), and was specified as an IEEE std. 1394—1995 IEEE Standard for a high performance serial bus. It is a very convenient serial interface standard which is considered to be used at home because of supporting a synchronous transfer, active plug and play, and a connection state of a high degree of freedom while maintaining a high transfer speed of hundreds Mbits per second.
Further, an SBP-2 (Serial Bus Protocol 2) is as one of application protocols using the IEEE 1394 packet communication system. The SBP-2 has functions of efficiently transferring commands and data among various kinds of units or devices such as a disk drive unit, a magnetic tape drive unit, a printer, a scanner, a digital camera or the like, and notifying an operation state of the command, the results of the operation, or a state whether or not data transfer has been completed, to an application layer processing section which is located so as to be higher than a SBP-2 layer processing section.
FIG. 7
is a timing chart showing a sequence of communication in a first example of prior art which is performed between signal processing apparatuses
1
a
and
2
a
of packet communication apparatuses connected to each other via a serial data bus conformed with the IEEE 1394 interface standard.
Referring to
FIG. 7
, in the first example, the signal processing apparatus
1
a
comprises an upper layer processing section
11
a
having a data memory
112
a
, an intermediate layer processing section
12
a
having a data memory
121
a
, and a lower layer processing section
13
a
having a data memory
131
a
. On the other hand, the signal processing apparatus
2
a
comprises an upper layer processing section
21
a
having a data memory
212
a
, an intermediate layer processing section
22
a
having a data memory
221
a
, and a lower layer processing section
23
a
having a data memory
231
a.
In the first example, when packet data
511
is transmitted from the signal processing apparatus
2
a
to the signal processing apparatus
1
a
, first of all, a data transmission request signal
510
is sent from the upper layer processing section
11
a
to the intermediate layer processing section
12
a
of the signal processing apparatus
1
a
. Transfer data
511
constructing a part of data
509
is also transmitted together with the data transmission request signal
510
. In this case, the transfer data
511
is a piece of data obtained by dividing the data
509
by the upper layer processing section
11
a
into packet data each having the size equal to or smaller than a memory capacity of the data memory
131
a
of the lower layer processing section
13
a
because of limitation of the memory capacity of the data memory
131
a
. The transfer data
511
transmitted together with the data transmission request signal
510
is temporarily stored in the data memory
121
a
of the intermediate layer processing section
12
a
. The intermediate layer processing section
12
a
generates and outputs a Read/Write Request signal
513
to the lower layer processing section
13
a
, and transmits the transfer data
512
stored in the data memory
121
a
to the lower layer processing section
13
a.
The Read/Write Request signal
513
represents transfer request which is issued by the intermediate layer processing section
12
a
for transferring the transfer data
512
stored in the data memory
121
a
of the intermediate layer processing section
12
a
to the intermediate layer processing section
22
a
of the signal processing apparatus
2
a
, and the Read/Write Request signal
513
is a part of control signals or means for controlling the configuration order of the transfer data, confirmation of arrival of the transfer data to the signal processing apparatus
2
a
of the other party, retransmission control and the like. These control signals include an Indication signal (Notification of Transfer), a Response signal (Notification of Response), and a Confirmation signal (Notification of Confirmation), which will be described hereinafter.
In response to the Read/Write Request signal
513
, the lower layer processing section
13
a
transmits transfer data
514
transmitted from the intermediate layer processing section
12
a
via the data memory
131
a
of the lower layer processing section
13
a
and the serial data bus to the lower layer processing section
23
a
of the signal processing apparatus
2
a.
The transfer data
514
is temporarily stored in the data memory
131
a
of the lower layer processing section
23
a
. Thereafter, the lower layer processing section
23
a
generates and outputs an Indication signal
516
to the intermediate layer processing section
22
a
of the signal processing apparatus
2
a
, and then, transmits the transfer data
515
stored in the data memory
231
a
to the intermediate layer processing section
22
a
. The intermediate layer processing section
22
a
temporarily stores the transfer data
517
received together with the Indication signal
516
into the data memory
221
a
of the intermediate layer processing section
22
a
. Then the intermediate layer processing section
22
a
generates and outputs a Response signal
518
to the lower layer processing section
23
a
, and further generates and outputs a Notification of Arrival signal
519
for the transfer data
517
to the upper layer processing section
21
a
of the signal processing apparatus
2
a.
The checked result of the matching of the transfer data
517
transmitted by the intermediate layer processing section
22
a
is included in the above Response signal
518
. If there is no problem with respect to the transfer data
517
, a code indicative of Completion is included in the Response signal
518
. On the other hand, if there is a problem, a code indicative of an Error is included in the Response signal
518
. In response to the Notification of Arrival signal
519
, the upper layer processing section
21
a
receives the transfer data
517
stored in the data memory
221
a
of the intermediate layer processing section
22
a.
The Response signal
518
issued by the intermediate layer processing section
22
a
to the lower layer processing section
23
a
is received by the lower layer processing section
13
a
of the signal processing apparatus
1
a
. The above Response signal
518
is further transmitted as a Confirmation signal
520
from the lower layer processing section
13
a
to the intermediate layer processing section
12
a
. If the code of the Confirmation signal
520
is “Error”, the transfer data
512
is retransmitted by the intermediate layer processing section
12
a
. On the other hand, if the code of the Confirmation signal
520
is “Complete”, a Notification of Completion signal
521
, indicating that the tran
Akashita Shoji
Hanaoka Kunihiro
Kurose Mitsukazu
Tomioka Osamu
A. Marquez, Esq. Juan Carlos
Fisher Esq. Stanley P.
Kizou Hassan
Kobe Steel, LTD.
Levitan Dmitry
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