| 摘要 |
The invention provides a low-latency, peer-to-peer TDM bus and bus protocol in which multiple devices may communicate without the presence of a bus master controller. The bus comprises one or more data lines and one or more control lines. Each device is assigned a unique binary address, and the devices access the bus sequentially in order of their bus addresses. During a device's access period, if the device has data to transmit, the device places its address on the data lines, asserts a START signal on the bus, and proceeds to transmit data to the other devices on the bus. When the data transmission is completed, the device asserts an END signal on the bus, thus passing control of the bus to the next device in the sequence. If the device has no data to transmit, the device simply places its address on the data lines, asserts the START signal, and asserts the END signal, and control passes directly to the next device in line. In this manner, each device is given an opportunity to transmit on the bus, without interference from other devices, and without the need for a master bus controller to arbitrate between the devices.
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