Arbiter Diagnostic Circuit for Resource Grant Delay Violation Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Diagnosing arbitration-induced faults in distributed processing systems is challenging due to complex processing states and unavailability of comprehensive arbitration state information, leading to potential system faults from prolonged resource access blocking.
Innovation Solution
A method involving an arbitration diagnostic circuit that detects arbitration events, maintains a chronological memory trace of time-stamped events, and calculates resource grant delays to detect excessive delays, comparing them against defined limits, and performs actions such as storing violation information or asserting alerts when delays exceed limits.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If resource arbitration is implemented to coordinate shared resource accesses, then resource sharing efficiency is improved, but system diagnostic capability deteriorates due to complex processing states and unavailability of arbitration state information
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by implementing an arbitration diagnostic circuit that proactively monitors and records arbitration events before faults occur. The circuit maintains a chronological memory trace of arbitration events including time stamps, entity identifiers, and grant/defer decisions, enabling post-event analysis without disrupting normal arbitration operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The arbitration diagnostic circuit serves as an intermediary between the arbiter and diagnostic systems. It interfaces with the arbiter to capture arbitration state information and provides this data to external diagnostic circuits, acting as a bridge that makes previously unavailable arbitration internals accessible for diagnosis without affecting arbiter functionality.
2Stability of the object's composition
If arbitration processing blocks given subsystem from shared resource access for coordination, then resource access coordination is improved, but system reliability deteriorates due to excessive blocking times causing system faults
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback by having the arbitration diagnostic circuit continuously monitor grant delays and compare them against predefined thresholds. When delays exceed acceptable limits, the circuit generates delay violation alerts and captures relevant state information, providing feedback that enables timely detection and correction of arbitration-induced reliability issues.
3Difficulty of detecting and measuring
If comprehensive arbitration state information is made available for diagnosis, then diagnostic capability is improved, but device complexity increases due to additional monitoring and memory requirements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing the diagnostic functionality into distinct modular components: an arbitration diagnostic circuit that interfaces with the arbiter, a chronological memory trace for event storage, and analysis logic for detecting delay violations. This modular approach enables comprehensive monitoring while managing complexity through functional separation.
Data Source
AI summary
An arbitration diagnostic circuit and method provide diagnostic information in arbitration-based systems and/or provide detection of and response to excessive arbitration delays. For example, in one embodiment, an arbitration diagnostic circuit maintains a chronological memory trace of arbitration events, including resource request events and corresponding resource grant events for two or more entities having arbitrated access to a shared resource. The trace, which may be regarded as a running, ordered list, may comprise time-stamped event identifiers, which aid the analysis of arbitration related errors or failures. Indeed, in one or more embodiments, an arbitration diagnostic circuit is configured to track elapsed times for resource requests, and to detect resource grant delay violations. Delay violations can be logged, along with the other arbitration state information, and the arbitration diagnostic circuit can be configured to freeze systems or sub-systems responsive to detecting delay violations and/or to capture various state information.