METHOD, APPARATUS AND SYSTEM FOR SINGLE-ENDED COMMUNICATION OF TRANSACTION LAYER PACKETS

摘要

Techniques and mechanisms for exchanging single-ended communications with a protocol stack of an integrated circuit package. In an embodiment, an integrated circuit (IC) chip includes a protocol stack comprising a transaction layer which performs operations compatible with a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express™ (PCIe™) specification. Transaction layer packets, exchanged between the transaction layer and a link layer of the protocol stack, are compatible with a PCIe™ format. In another embodiment, a physical layer of the protocol stack is to couple the IC chip to another IC chip for an exchange of the transaction layer packets via single-ended communications. A packaged device includes both of the IC chips.

主权项

1. A first integrated circuit (IC) chip comprising:
a first protocol stack including:
a first transaction layer to perform operations according to transaction layer requirements of an input-output (I/O) load-store architecture which specifies differential communication of transaction layer packet information;a first link layer to exchange with the first transaction layer transaction layer packets (TLPs) each having a respective format compatible with a transaction layer packet format defined by the I/O load-store architecture; anda first physical layer to couple to a second IC chip and to participate in single-ended communications to exchange the TLPs with a second protocol stack of the second IC chip.