Abstract: The invention concerns the transfer of data information in a multiprocessor computer system. If data information has to be transferred between two processor units then the associated control information is made available on a connection bus and the data information is transferred afterwards via a switch unit from the first to the second processor unit. If however data information is to be transferred from a sending processor unit to all other processor units (broadcast transfer) then not only is control information transferred via the connection bus but subsequent data information too; a transfer of data information via the switch unit does not occur in this case. In this manner it is possible to reduce the outlay for the switch unit in terms of circuitry and programming.

Abstract: In a low temperature generation process, compressed gas (3) at high pressure enters from an inlet nozzle (1) and alternately expands into one of two resonator tubes (A,B) of an expansion engine. The expanding gas excites standing acoustic waves (4) in the resonator tubes (A,B). The acoustic energy of the waves (4) is converted into electrical energy by acoustic/electric power converters and is led away outside the "cold area" of the tubes. The expansion engine contains one or more resonator tubes with a common inlet nozzle (1). Each resonator tube has an acoustic/electric power converter (5) and an exhaust port (6). Together with a compressor, a heat exchanger and a heat sink, the expansion engine provides a very effective cooling system which may be used for the cooling of small electronic devices like chips or modules.

Abstract: A system for mounting VLSI devices on a substrate is disclosed, offering a high contact density. Each package consists of a semiconductor device having protruding elongated contact pin (2) on its surface and a wiring substrate having a cavity (3) on its surface. The cavities are filed with a conductive material (7) of a low melting point composition and sealed with a thin non-conductive foil (4). During packaging, the contact pins are made to penetrate the foil, and extend into the conductive alloy, thus making electrical contact therewith. To ease the penetration of the foil, the contact pins could be set into oscillating motion by means of an ultrasonic generator.

Abstract: The compressor cascade comprises a plurality of tandem-connected membrane pumps, each of the pumps having a plurality of stroke chambers whose volumes decrease in the direction of the fluid flow through the pumps. Each chamber has several parallel-connected input/output channels for interconnecting the individual membrane pumps and a check valve in each input/output channel for forcing the fluid in a specified direction. By electrostatic attraction forces, the membranes in the pumps are energized synchronously to resonance oscillations of the same frequency and deflection, building up the necessary operating pressure as the fluid is moved from the stroke chamber of one membrane pump into the smaller volume stroke chamber of the next succeeding membrane pump. The movement of the fluid through the membrane pumps of the compressor cascade leads to its compression, and the pressure at the end of the cascade is related to the reduction in volume of each succeeding stroke chamber.

Abstract: An integrated (silicon based) packaging/wiring structure provides for VLSI chips 4 to be placed within openings of somewhat larger size in a semiconductor interconnection wafer (IW, 2) supported by a carrier 1. The interconnection wafer 2 includes multilevel (ML) wiring planes and incorporated circuit components integrated in a less demanding technology as compared to the VLSI chips 4. Silicon contact chips 5 with conductive surface layers 22, 23 placed over the chip/IW plane provide for the required interconnections by means of needle-like structures 24 inserted in corresponding via holes. The needles are better suited to withstand shear strain than are conventional C-4 (Controlled Collapse Chip Connection) joints. Consequently a much higher number of chip pads can be provided. Power supply is effected via rather large-dimensioned conductive planes, e.g.

Abstract: The invention concerns arrangements and methods for error testing and diagnosing processors (e.g., 9; FIG. 2), whose logic subsystems (20) are interconnected by storage elements (23, 24) which in the error test and diagnostic mode are connected in the form of shift register means for the shift clock controlled application of test data and for receiving result data, and which comprise means (58) for comparing the actual result data with desired result data, said means setting an error indicator (59) for initiating further actions in the case of a mismatch. For testing the correct implementation of operations and operational secondary functions, a signature generator circuit (30) is provided comprising a test accumulator (51, 52, . . .

Abstract: In a bus-oriented computer system, the decision as to which unit is to receive the bus takes account of the current status of the bus system and the respective operation to be performed on the bus. For that purpose, status information of the connected units, the bus command to be executed and the address of the requested unit are fed to the allocation logic (arbiter) on separate or commonly used lines, thus avoiding idle times during the use of the bus. By evaluating the bus command, the allocation priority can be dynamically changes in order to suppress bus accesses that are bound to fail from the start.

Abstract: The detailed testing of processors, manufactured according to very large scale integration principles, which also extends to secondary functions of operations, such as the setting or non-setting of particular state indicators, necessitates the transfer of large quantities of test data between the processor and the tester, for which purpose no distinction is drawn between external and integrated testers. For testing such structures, the known LSSD method is frequently used wherein the storage elements of the logic subsystems are combined in the form of shift register chains for testing. To permit a fast exchange of test data on the system bus, connecting the processor to a tester, interface register stages are also included in the shift register chain which has a garland-shaped structure and whose beginning and end are connected by a controllable switch during testing.

Abstract: For error testing and diagnostics in EDP systems, particular storage elements (e.g., 6) are connected to form an addressable matrix which is coupled to a maintenance and service processor (5) or an external tester through the system bus (9). During normal operation, the logic subsystems (10), of which processors (1) and processing units consist, are connected by the storage elements. Through the system bus, the maintenance and service processor or the tester transfers addresses to the matrix and test data to the addressed storage elements from where they are fed to the logic subsystems which in turn respond to such test data, transferring the (partial) result data thus received to the storage elements. In the next step, the maintenance and service processor or the external tester causes the result data for error analysis and diagnostics to be fetched through the system bus from the storage elements reconnected in the form of a matrix.

Abstract: An integrated circuit chip includes a tristate driver which assumes an active logical state in response to a data signal at its data input and assumes a high impedance state in response to a control signal at its control input. The integrated circuit chip also includes a control signal generating network which is connected to the tristate driver's control input for producing the control signal. The control signal generating network may be tested by connecting the control signal generating network to the data input and overriding the control input to prevent the tristate driver from assuming the high impedance state. Thus, for testing purposes, the proper response of the control signal generating circuit may be ascertained by monitoring the active state of the tristate driver.

Abstract: LSI circuitry conforming to LSSD rules and techniques usually requires at least a small portion of circuitry used only for check and test purposes.The disclosed circuitry meets the LSSD design rules and techniques and considerably reduces the test circuit overhead. The disclosure modifies the known shift register latch (SRL) strategy by logically removing the master latches from the slave latches and by providing the slave latches with multiple shift inputs, e.g., two shift inputs (FIG. 2). The LSSD shifting philosophy remains unchanged to the extent that at the time of shifting, the virtual (not available slave latch) becomes real (physical) by assigning the only physical slave latch to the respective master latch. The present disclosure provides for multiple master latches to be dynamically assigned to one slave latch during shifting. This is in contrast to the known SRL chain approach requiring one slave latch for each master latch.

Abstract: LSI circuitry conforming to LSSD rules and techniques usually requires at least a small portion of circuitry used only for check and test purposes. The disclosed circuitry meets the LSSD design rules and techniques and considerably reduces the test circuit overhead. The disclosure modifies the known shift register latch (SRL) strategy by replacing the SRL's by master latches in such a manner that the information contained in them is shifted in cascades, using the "division by two" principle for the master latches on the chip. The shift chain having only master latches is selected in response to shift clock signals. By consecutively shifting the respective cascade element, detailed information is obtained for all the master latches on the chip (without the information of the master latches temporarily used as slave latches during shifting) being lost in the cascade element. Level Sensitive Scan Design Rules and Techniques are extensively disclosed in the testing art. See for example: (1) U.S. Pat. No.

Abstract: In a microprogrammed processor consisting of several circuitized chips, which are to be synchronously operated, each chip is provided with its own local clock generator or T-ring for deriving therefrom timing signals required during the subphases of micro instruction execution. A master clock connected to all of the T-rings by lines of equal length forces the individual T-rings to operate synchronously and keeps them operating in such a manner. In addition, reset circuitry is provided for forcing all of the T-rings to their first timing interval for initial synchronization thereof or, at an appropriate time, when a micro instruction requiring less than the maximum number of available T-ring timing signals is executed.The timing signals which are locally produced are subject to little delay on their way to the various local switching points.

Abstract: In a data processing or transmission system which includes at least two synchronized clocks, for example--T-rings A and B which generate timing pulses Tai and Tbi for microinstruction execution, synchronism is checked by logic circuitry which receives pulses from the clocks. At least one of the pulses is delayed by one or more pulse period durations ti. The logic circuit output signal is used as an input to an indicator latch which is periodically set by an independent check oscillator or clock. In a preferred embodiment, the delays are introduced by master-slave flip-flops, which receive predetermined combinations of the T-signals and set by the independent check clock.Several delay latches and associated AND gates may be used for different logical combinations of delayed and undelayed T-signals. This scheme can easily be expanded to accommodate more than two synchronously operating clocks.

Abstract: In a micro-controlled data handling system the number of lines and pins required to transfer control signals from the microprogram controls to be integrated circuit modules controlled by such signals is conserved by using two bussing paths for distributing the control signals to the modules. A first path is dedicated exclusively to pre-decoded control signal functions and a second path is shared for transferring both data and control signal functions. Each controlled module contains an additional decoding circuit for combinationally decoding control signal functions received through both paths.

Abstract: An instruction execution modification mechanism is described for a digital data processor wherein multiple programs or tasks are performed in a concurrent manner by means of a time slice mechanism which causes the instructions from the different programs to be executed in an interleaved manner. Instructions from the different programs are executed during different successive time slice intervals. The instruction execution modification mechanism is responsive to the occurrences of various predetermined conditions in the data processing system for selectively modifying the normal execution of different ones of the instructions in different ones of the programs. To this end, there is provided a program list mechanism listing the modifiable programs, an instruction list mechanism listing the modifiable instructions and a modification storage mechanism for storing modification signals for the different instructions.

Abstract: A method for performing manual operations, such as address compare equal stop, single cycle alter, etc., in a time slice controlled microprocessor with microprogramming, which avoids stopping the processor clock when any of the programs requires a manual operation. This problem is solved by assigning the manual operations to a specific program, which for the other programs in the multiprogram environment executes the manual operations required.

Abstract: Input/output registers integrated with logic and arithmetic circuits are combined externally of a processor nucleus having only storage registers, instruction decode logic, timing circuitry and arithmetic and logic unit for executing microinstructions whereby the use of the input/output registers is determined by microprogram code and by time control to either selectively execute all adapter and interface communication and control functions for input and output devices or to selectively be switched into the data flow of the processor nucleus.

Abstract: For increasing the availability of a modular computer, a control unit and switches are provided, the latter being connected in between the control storages and the remaining identical hardware of the processor. In the case of a hardware error of one processor, its control storage is switched for a specific period of time to the same hardware of another processor which interrupts its own tasks, assuming the tasks of the defective processor for the time during which the control storage of the defective processor remains switched off. Subsequently, the former or non-defective processor resumes its own tasks. The task cycles assigned to one processor or the other can be specified to be identical or as a function of the respective processing requirements.