System node and method for providing media arbitration

US8085700B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Freeescale Semiconductor, Inc. · US

Inventors

• Christopher Temple · Munich, DE
• Florian Bogenberger · Poing, DE
• Mathias Rausch · Borgo San Lazzaro, DE
• Manfred Thanner · Neubiberg, DE
• Thomas Wuerz · Poing, DE
• Leonard Link · Bad Vilbel, DE
• Gregor Pokorny · Wien, AT

Key dates

• Filing date: Nov 21, 2003
• Grant date: Dec 27, 2011
• Expiry date: Aug 24, 2026

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04L2012/644
• WIPO field: Digital communication
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A multi-node communications system is provided with communications protocol using both static (11, 12, 13, 18) (pre-determined) and dynamic (51, 52, 53 . . . ) (run-time determined) consecutive communication slots is used. The system has a number of distributed communication nodes, each node being arranged for communicating frames of data with the other nodes during both the static (11, 12, 13 . . . ) and the dynamic (51, 52, 53 . . . ) communication slots. Each node includes a synchronized time base 5 made up of consecutive timeslots (11, 12, 13 . . . , 51, 52, 53 . . . ). The timebase 5 has substantially the same error tolerance in each node. For static communication (10), a predetermined number of timeslots (20) are utilized for each static communication slot. For dynamic communication a dynamically allocated number of timeslots (60) are utilized for each dynamic communication slot. In this way both static and dynamic media arbitration is provided within a periodically recurring communication pattern. Communication jitter is well defined and dealt with, and large oscillator drifts are compensated for.