High level self-checking intelligent i/o controller

Details High level self-checking intelligent i/o controller High level self-checking intelligent i/o controller

G - Physics

06

F

354/225.2

G06F 11/00 (2006.01) G06F 11/10 (2006.01) G06F 11/16 (2006.01) G06F 13/28 (2006.01)

Patent

CA 1259415

HIGH LEVEL SELF-CHECKING INTELLIGENT I/O CONTROLLER ABSTRACT OF THE INVENTION The present invention is an input/output con- troller for providing total data integrity for any sin- gle point failure. The I/O controller comprises a pro- cessor module having two microprocessors, an associated memory, a direct memory access module ("DMA"), and a processor support module ("PSM"); a device drive inter- face; and a channel interface. The two microprocessors are operated in lockstep as a dual modular redundant processor system. The processors provide true and com- plement, respectively, addresses, data and control strobes. The PSM compares the true and complement data to detect errors (i.e., corresponding data bits not being a true-complement pair) and generates parity pro- tected data (and checks parity) on the data bus. The PSM also generates and checks dual railed control strobes and provides synchronization of all control strobes and interrupt signals to enable the true-complement pair of microprocessors to operate in lockstep. The DMA com- pares the redundant addresses from the processors to detect errors and to generate parity protected addresses (and check parity) on the address bus. The DMA also generates and checks bus arbitration signals and con- trols direct memory access. Self-checking checkers are used to check the various dual railed, true-complement pairs of signals to detect, locate and isolate internal faults. Miscompares between true-complement address, data and control signals and parity errors detected in reading program instructions from memory all are -treated as fatal errors, which cause both processors to halt. Other types of errors are treated as nonfatal, which cause processor exceptions during which appropriate programming is executed to locate and isolate such errors.

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