Description

The INIC provides full encapsulation of all functions necessary to develop a MOST® compliant device. It allows an easy implementation of MOST into a device. The INIC also provides supervision of the application, and a protected mode that will be entered during malfunction or absence of an application (i.e., start-up). This protected mode prevents application malfunctions from influencing the integrity of the network and the system. The INIC includes the MOST NetServices stack’s MiniKernel, thus providing MOST compliant real time behavior. This significantly relieves the External Host Controller (EHC) from realtime processing tasks.

The INIC makes a MOST device accessible according to the rules of the MOST Specification, even without an application running on an EHC. The OS81082 INIC provides a message-based interface with the same physical interface and API as the OS81050 INIC. It is encapsulated by a Function Block (FBlock INIC). This allows the EHC to control the INIC in the same way as other functions in the system.

The INIC interfaces to external hardware using I²C and PCM streaming ports. Additionally, it provides the interface Media Local Bus (MediaLB®). MediaLB supports high-speed communication for all MOST data types.

Block Diagram

Software

In the INIC’s architecture, time-critical, resource-intensive and fail-safe relevant parts of the network functionality are handled by the on-chip MOST NetServices. This includes significant properties of the mandatory Function Block (FBlock) NetBlock. A MOST device based on INIC is able to answer requests to the NetBlock, even if the application is not running or not yet started on an EHC, thus providing maximum robustness for the network client. The figure on the right shows the software architecture for the INIC. It consists of an on-chip stack and the MOST NetServices API V2, that run on the EHC.

MOST NetServices API V2 Migration

The following software services are integrated on-chip as parts of the MOST NetServices MiniKernel:

• MOST Supervisor (MSV)
• MOST Processor Control Service (MCS)
• Socket Connection Manager (SCM)
• Control Message Service (CMS)
• Asynchronous Data Service (ADS)
• Minimum NetBlock (NBMIN)
• INIC Segmentation Service (ISS)

Wrapper modules within the MOST NetServices API V2 restore the Basic Layer (Layer I) of the former MOST NetServices API V1 on the External Host Controller.

Software Architecture

More information about the network management software for INICs can be found at MOST NetServices API V2.