Anton Erasmus wrote:> On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:37:47 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org> > wrote: > >>In article <431b6b5e$1@clear.net.nz>, Jim Granville >><no.spam@designtools.co.nz> writes >> >>>Also, the WHOLE smartcard market will have to be sued, as they >>>universally have IO pins less than the internal data bus width.... >> >>The smart cards use the ISO 7816 defined interface. SO Microchip will >>have to take on ISO. In any event it is just the serial port + power >>lines+ clock that is on a smart card it is an interface like RS232 or >>Centronics. > > Arn't there some 32 bit MCUs with less than 32 I/O pins ? Wont they > also fall under this patent ?Yes! - and it also exposes the nonsense of which "data bus" might they mean, and the simple lunacy of the patents :) There are uC with 22 bit opcodes, for example, with < 22io, so their pin count is clearly < the opcode-data-bus width. What about the ARM variants that fetch 128 bits at a time from FLASH ? Again, these do have an internal bus > I/O Pin count. How about VLIW Graphics controllers, especially those with on chip, or stacked memory. Very clearly they have internal bus widths > i/o pins.... Then there are simple ones like Atmel's AT91SAM7S32, showing 21 i/o... The list goes on and on, all showing that there is an orthogonal relationship between IO Pin count, and any internal bus(es) widths on Microcontrollers. In no way, does one number dictate the other. -jg
Microchip looses the plot ?
Started by ●August 12, 2005
Reply by ●September 5, 20052005-09-05
Reply by ●September 5, 20052005-09-05
In article <1125950671.6af3e681bf88775ed7ebd064643bfca6@teranews>, Anton Erasmus <nobody@spam.prevent.net> writes>On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:37:47 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org> >wrote: > >>In article <431b6b5e$1@clear.net.nz>, Jim Granville >><no.spam@designtools.co.nz> writes >>> >>>Also, the WHOLE smartcard market will have to be sued, as they >>>universally have IO pins less than the internal data bus width.... >> >>The smart cards use the ISO 7816 defined interface. SO Microchip will >>have to take on ISO. In any event it is just the serial port + power >>lines+ clock that is on a smart card it is an interface like RS232 or >>Centronics. > >Arn't there some 32 bit MCUs with less than 32 I/O pins ? Wont they >also fall under this patent ? > >Regards > Anton Erasmus >I haven't read the patent but... CPU Smart cards have only one interface off the chip of 6/8 pins (memory cards and secure memory cards are similar) 1 i/o 2 Clock 3 Reset 4 Vcc 5 Ground 6 There was a Vpp for programming but this is no longer used and is not conected as cards us an internal charge pump 7/8 Aux1 and Aux2 for future use and are not currenty used. So regardless of bus size there is only 1 IO line. This is an RS232 line running serial comms (bi-directional). Now it depends on when Microchip did this patent. The smart card patents date from 1968 in Germany, 1970 in Japan but the majority were in 1974 in France. The real production was not until 1984 in France. It is now an ISO Standard interface (ISO 7816). So Microchip will have to sue ISO (the international Standards Organisation) and every smart card manufacturer in the world (Hello Mastercard, Visa, AmEx etc :-) I expect this will amuse ANSI who are part of ISO.... -- \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Reply by ●September 5, 20052005-09-05
In article <431cbfbd$1@clear.net.nz>, Jim Granville <no.spam@designtools.co.nz> writes>Anton Erasmus wrote: >> On Mon, 5 Sep 2005 00:37:47 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org> >> wrote: >> >>>In article <431b6b5e$1@clear.net.nz>, Jim Granville >>><no.spam@designtools.co.nz> writes >>> >>>>Also, the WHOLE smartcard market will have to be sued, as they >>>>universally have IO pins less than the internal data bus width.... >>> >>>The smart cards use the ISO 7816 defined interface. SO Microchip will >>>have to take on ISO. In any event it is just the serial port + power >>>lines+ clock that is on a smart card it is an interface like RS232 or >>>Centronics. >> >> Arn't there some 32 bit MCUs with less than 32 I/O pins ? Wont they >> also fall under this patent ? > > Yes! - and it also exposes the nonsense of which "data bus" might they >mean, and the simple lunacy of the patents :)In the case of smart cards there is no external data bus. In fact there is no external bus at all.> What about the ARM variants that fetch 128 bits at a time from FLASH ? >Again, these do have an internal bus > I/O Pin count.Which bus? they have several data buses, as do PowerPC. -- \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/ /\/\/ chris@phaedsys.org www.phaedsys.org \/\/\ \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Reply by ●September 5, 20052005-09-05
"Chris Hills" <chris@phaedsys.org> wrote in message news:BioTRCCndMHDFAde@phaedsys.demon.co.uk...> So regardless of bus size there is only 1 IO line. This is an RS232 line > running serial comms (bi-directional).RS-232?? Are you sure? Serial bidirectional I can understand. RS-232, rather less so. Steve http://www.fivetrees.com
