CN101201759A - Method and system for identifying type of vertical adapter card - Google Patents

Abstract

A kind of vertical switching card type identification method and system, it can apply to a computer host board, is used for discerning the type of the vertical switching card inserted at present on the computer host board; the method is characterized in that a slot connector of the vertical adapter card inserted on a mainboard is connected with a bus to a group of input and output pins of a control chip through an external connection circuit, and when the computer mainboard is initialized, the logic potential of the input and output pins is detected to judge the type of the vertical adapter card and execute a corresponding configuration setting program. Compared with the prior art, the feature can be realized without increasing the total pin number of the vertical adapter card, thereby reducing the complexity of hardware and being easier to implement, thereby saving the design and manufacturing cost.

Description

Type identification method and system for vertical riser card

technical field

The invention relates to a computer system technology, in particular to a type identification method and system for an upright adapter card.

Background technique

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) is a peripheral connection interface often used on computer platforms. It can be used to connect the central processing unit of the computer platform to a circuit board, and connect to various computer peripherals through the circuit board. Devices, such as screen displays, hard disk devices, optical disc drives, network switches, etc., allow the central processing unit to communicate with these peripheral devices. The PCI specification stipulates a set of standard bus signals to allow the central processing unit to communicate with peripheral devices on the circuit board. However, in terms of specific applications, with the maturity and progress of technology, the PCI specification further includes some different extension specifications, such as PCI-E (PCI Express), which makes some extension function expansion based on the original PCI architecture. , so that the data transfer speed can be faster than the outgoing PCI bus.

A feature of the PCI-E bus architecture is that it can support a variety of circuit cards with different bus widths, such as 1 byte (x1), 4 bytes (x4), 8 bytes (x8), and 16 words Bus width in sections (x16). In actual application, a circuit card with a small bus width can be inserted into a slot connector with a large bus width for use. For example, a circuit card with a 4-byte bus width can not only be inserted into a slot connector with the same 4-byte bus width, but also can be inserted into a slot with an 8-byte or 16-byte bus width. connector to use. In other words, if a slot connector with a bus width of 8 bytes is set on the motherboard of a computer host, the slot connector can be selectively used to plug into a circuit card with a bus width of 8 bytes or 4 bytes. .

The riser card (riser card) is a circuit card that can be inserted into the PCI-E slot connector to transfer the PCI-E interface slot connector, and can also increase the capacity of the PCI-E interface slot connector. quantity. For example, if a PCI-E peripheral interface controller originally only has 4 slot connectors, so the total number of peripheral devices that can be lapped is 4, then a vertical adapter with 3 slot connectors Inserting a card into one of the four socket connectors increases the total number of peripheral devices it can bond to to six.

In the application of the network server, the PCI-E peripheral interface controller of the main board of the server host is usually plugged into a vertical riser card. Since the BIOS (BasicInput/Output System) input and output control unit of the host motherboard needs to be configured for each vertical riser card during initialization, each vertical riser card needs to be provided in a specific way. identification method. Currently, a commonly used identification method is to pass the configuration through the connected connection board pins for system identification. However, a disadvantage of this method in actual implementation is that it needs to increase the total number of pins of the vertical riser card, and it will also Increase the complexity of the hardware architecture.

Contents of the invention

In view of the above-mentioned shortcomings of the prior art, the main purpose of the present invention is to provide a method and system for identifying the type of vertical riser cards, which can be implemented without increasing the total number of pins of the vertical riser cards. It reduces the complexity of the hardware architecture and is easy to implement.

The vertical riser card type identification method and system of the present invention are designed to be applied to a computer mainboard (such as a mainboard of a network server), and the computer mainboard is equipped with a peripheral interface controller, such as a PCI-E type The peripheral interface controller is used to identify the type of each vertical riser card currently inserted into the PCI-E peripheral interface controller.

The method for identifying the type of the vertical riser card of the present invention at least includes: (P1) connecting the connector of the vertical riser card to a set of input and output pins of the control chip of the motherboard with a plurality of external lines, An identification signal generated by the vertical riser card is transmitted to the group of input and output pins to become an identification code; (P2) when the computer motherboard is initialized, the logic potential of the input and output pins is detected, to obtain the identification code; and (P3) comparing the identification code according to a riser card type correspondence table to determine the type of the vertical riser card.

In terms of physical structure, the vertical riser card type identification system of the present invention at least includes: (A) an external line connection module, which includes a plurality of external lines for connecting the bus inserted into the slot of the vertical riser card to A group of input and output pins on the control chip of the motherboard, so as to transmit a group of identification signals generated by the vertical riser card to the group of input and output pins to form a group of identification codes; (B) a pin potential A detection module, which can be activated to detect the logic potential of the group of specific input and output pins when the computer motherboard is initialized, so as to obtain the identification code; and (C) a discrimination module, in which a turn The adapter card type correspondence table; and in actual operation, the type of the upright adapter card can be determined by comparing the identification codes with the adapter card type correspondence table.

The feature of the vertical adapter card type identification method and system of the present invention is that the identification signal is transmitted to the socket connector on the motherboard through the original bus, and then the identification signal is transmitted to a group of input and output of the control chip through the external line Pin, so that the BIOS input and output control unit detects the logic potential of the GPIO input and output pins on the control chip when the computer motherboard is initialized to determine the type of the vertical adapter card and execute the corresponding configuration settings program. Compared with the prior art, this feature does not need to increase the number of pins of the vertical riser card, thereby reducing the complexity of the hardware and making it easier to implement and save design and manufacturing costs.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of application, which is used to show the application mode of integrating the vertical riser card type identification system of the present invention into a computer motherboard;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the architecture, which is used to show the modular basic architecture of the vertical riser card type identification system of the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of the structure, which is used to show the connection mode of the external line connection module adopted by the vertical riser card type identification system of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a corresponding table for showing an embodiment of the corresponding table adopted by the vertical riser card type identification system of the present invention.

Description of main component symbols

10 computer motherboard

20 central processing unit (CPU)

30 input and output control unit (BIOS)

31 initialization processing module

40 peripheral interface controller (PCI-E)

41 slot connector

50 Riser Card

51 control chip

60 expansion cards

100 Upright riser card type identification system of the present invention

110 external line connection module

111 external line

112 external lines

120 detection module

130 discrimination module

201 type information

Detailed ways

The following is a detailed disclosure and description of the embodiment of the vertical riser card type identification method and system of the present invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 shows the application of the riser card type identification system (such as the block indicated by reference numeral 100 ) of the present invention. As shown in the figure, the vertical riser card type identification system 100 of the present invention is integrated into a computer main board 10 (for example, a main board of a network server) in practical application, and the computer main board 10 is equipped with a central processing unit ( CPU) 20, an input-output control unit 30, and a peripheral interface controller 40; wherein the input-output control unit 30 is, for example, a BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) chip, and the peripheral interface controller 40 is, for example, a PCI -E (Peripheral Component Interconnect-Express) type peripheral interface controller, and has a plurality of slot connectors 41 (in the example shown in Fig. 1, for example including 4 slot connectors 41). In practical applications, the slot connector 41 of the PCI-E peripheral interface controller 40 can be used to insert a vertical riser card (risercard) 50, thereby utilizing the vertical riser card 50 to expand the PCI-E The number of slot connectors of the peripheral interface controller 40 allows more expansion cards 60 to be overlapped.

In actual operation, the vertical riser card type identification system 100 of the present invention can be used to identify the type of the vertical riser card 50 inserted on the slot connector 41, thereby enabling the BIOS input and output control unit 30 to According to this, the configuration setting is performed for the specific type of the riser card 50 during initialization.

In the following embodiments, the riser card 50 has a connection board 52 for connecting with one of the socket connectors 41 of the motherboard. And this connection plate 52 for example has 3 connection buses, for example comprises 2 4 bytes PCI-E buses and 1 8 bytes PCI-E buses, the external circuit of the present invention and by existing bus, for example with 2 The 4-byte PEI-E bus transmits the identification signal to the control chip to identify the type of vertical riser card.

As shown in FIG. 2 , the modular basic structure of the vertical riser card type identification system 100 of the present invention at least includes: (A) an external line connection module 110; (B) a pin potential detection module 120; and (C )-discrimination module 130. The individual attributes and functions of these components are firstly described below.

The external line connection module 110 includes a group of external lines 111, 112 as shown in FIG. The logic level of the identification signal of the riser card 50 is transmitted to the control chip 51 . In this embodiment, the input and output pins GPIO_1 and GPIO_2 are, for example, general purpose input and output pins under the GPIO (General Purpose Input/OUptut) standard specification. The connection between these input and output pins GPIO_1, GPIO_2 and these external lines 111, 112 is as shown in FIG. E bus, another external line 112 is connected to another GPIO_1 pin and another 4-byte PCI-E bus. That is, each external line is respectively connected to a PCI-E bus and a GPIO pin of a control chip.

In this embodiment, various types of vertical riser cards with input and output ports are used to identify the types. Different input and output controllers are arranged on the vertical riser cards. Each input and output controller can be connected with an external signal bus, passing its defined identification code BOARD_ID.

In this embodiment, since there are two external lines 111 and 112, the identification code BOARD_ID may be composed of, for example, 2 bytes. Please refer to Figure 4, which is an example of a riser card type correspondence table. Each byte of BOARD_ID represents whether it has an input and output controller. Only three vertical riser cards with different BOARD_IDs are listed in the table, but in fact Its combination can be 4 kinds. Wherein, the first byte of BOARD_ID is taken from the external line 111 , and the second byte of BOARD_ID is taken from the external line 112 . In the embodiment shown in Fig. 4, BOARD_ID=[01] represents the signal that a 4-byte PCI-E bus transmits the input and output ports, that is, this vertical riser card has the functions specified by an input and output controller. Control input and output ports; BOARD_ID=[00] means that the vertical riser card 50 adopts two input and output controllers; and BOARD_ID=[11] means that the vertical riser card 50 is not equipped with an input and output controller chip. It should be noted here that the correspondence table shown in FIG. 4 is only an actual application example; generally speaking, this correspondence table is used to indicate the correspondence between the identification code BOARD_ID and the type of vertical riser card.

The pin potential detection module 120 is, for example, integrated into the BIOS input and output control unit 30, and can be activated to detect the input and output pins on the control chip 51 of the vertical riser card 50 when the computer motherboard 10 is initialized. The logic levels of GPIO_1 and GPIO_2 are used to obtain the identification code BOARD_ID transmitted to the group of input and output pins GPIO_1 and GPIO_2.

The judging module 130 is also integrated into the BIOS input and output control unit 30, and pre-stored with a corresponding table such as shown in FIG. 4; BOARD_ID and according to the correspondence table shown in Fig. 4 distinguish the type of the vertical riser card 50, and inform the initialization processing module 31 in the BIOS input-output control unit 30 through a corresponding type information 201 of the result of the discrimination, so that the The initialization processing module 31 executes a corresponding initialization program to set the system configuration of the riser riser card 50 .

The following uses an application example to illustrate the overall operation of the vertical riser card type identification system 100 of the present invention in actual application.

When the user turns on or resets the power supply of the computer motherboard 10 (i.e. when the boot process is performed), it will first make the external lines 111, 112 on the connector 52 of the vertical riser card 50 generate corresponding logic signals; At the same time, the external line connection module 110 can transmit the logic signal levels of the external lines 111 and 112 to the input and output pins GPIO_1 and GPIO_2 on the control chip 51 , representing a group of identification codes BOARD_ID. Then when the BIOS input and output control unit 30 starts to execute the initialization program, the pin potential detection module 120 will be activated to detect the logic potentials of GPIO_1 and GPIO_2, thereby obtaining the identification code BOARD_ID represented by GPIO_1 and GPIO_2, such as obtained The identification code is 01, and the identification code BOARD_ID is sent to the judgment module 130, and the judgment module 130 judges that the type of the vertical riser card 50 has an input Output the upright adapter card of the controller, and inform the initialization processing module 31 in the BIOS input and output control unit 30 of the judgment result through a corresponding type information 201, so that the initialization processing module 31 executes the corresponding initialization program to set the The system configuration of the vertical riser card 50 .

In a word, the present invention provides a method and system for identifying the type of vertical riser card, which can be applied to a computer motherboard, and is used to identify the type of vertical riser card currently inserted on the computer motherboard; and its characteristics It is to connect the bus in the slot connector of the upright riser card to a group of GPIO input and output pins on the control chip of the upright riser card with external lines, and make the BIOS input and output control unit initialize when the computer motherboard Detect the logic potential of the GPIO input and output pins on the control chip to determine the type of the vertical riser card and execute the corresponding configuration setting program. Compared with the prior art, this feature does not increase the total number of pins of the vertical riser card, thereby reducing the complexity of the hardware and making it easier to implement and save design and manufacturing costs. The present invention therefore has better progress and practicality than the prior art.

The above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the scope of the substantive technical content of the present invention. The essential technical contents of the present invention are broadly defined in the following claims. If any technical entity or method accomplished by others is identical to that defined in the following claims, or is an equivalent change, it will be deemed to be covered by the claims of the present invention.

Claims (10)

1. identification of erection switching card type method, it can be applicable to a computer motherboard, and this computer motherboard is equipped with a central processing unit, an input and output management and control unit and a perimeter interface controller; Wherein this perimeter interface controller can overlap to a upright adapter, and this erection switching card has a control chip and at least one connector, and this connector is connected to one group of input and output pin of a control chip with one group of external circuit;

This identification of erection switching card type method comprises at least:

With a identification signal that this erection switching card produced through tear connector open, this external circuit group is passed to this group input and output pin and recognizes an identification code;

When this computer motherboard carries out initialization, detect this identification code; And

Compare this identification code according to a switching card type corresponding tables, to recognize the type of this erection switching card.

2. identification of erection switching card type method according to claim 1, wherein this computer motherboard is a web server host mainboard.

3. identification of erection switching card type method according to claim 1, wherein the input and output management and control unit that is a BIOS type, this input and output management and control unit.

4. identification of erection switching card type method according to claim 1, wherein this perimeter interface controller is the perimeter interface controller of a PCI-E type.

5. identification of erection switching card type method according to claim 1, wherein this group input and output pin is the general input and output pin of one group of GPIO.

6. identification of erection switching card type system, it can be integrated into a computer motherboard, and this computer motherboard is provided with a central processing unit, an input and output management and control unit and a control chip, this control chip connects a connector, this connector erection switching card with several buses that can be used for pegging graft, this control chip has a plurality of input and output pins;

This identification of erection switching card type system comprises at least:

One external circuit link block, it comprises a plurality of external circuits, connects bus and those general input and output pins of this slot separately, organizes general input and output pin so that one group of identification signal that this erection switching card was produced is passed to this;

One pin current potential detecting module, it can detect the logic current potential of those input and output pins when this computer motherboard carries out initialization, to obtain an identification code; And

One discrimination module wherein has a switching card type corresponding tables in advance, determines the type of this erection switching card according to this identification code.

7. identification of erection switching card type according to claim 6 system, wherein this computer motherboard is a web server host mainboard.

8. identification of erection switching card type according to claim 6 system, wherein the input and output management and control unit that is a BIOS type, this input and output management and control unit.

9. identification of erection switching card type according to claim 6 system, wherein this perimeter interface controller is the perimeter interface controller of a PCI-E type.

10. according to the described identification of erection switching card type of claim 6 system, wherein this input and output pin is the general input and output pin of one group of GPIO.

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