Microprocessor Communications for Cost Sensitive Products

Communications to, or between, low end microprocessors within a product always comes at a cost. This paper develops a new, economic solution to this problem that will be useful in a range of cost sensitive applications. The paper starts by identifying the properties of an inter-microprocessor communications system that adds minimal cost to a product and enables the use of lower price microprocessors. This leads us to introduce a new category of communications called time independent asynchronous (TIA) communications. An economic 2-wire TIA communications protocol is developed and described using timing diagrams. This protocol is implemented with performance evaluation including data throughput. Simulation is used to examine livelock and deadlock properties.