公开(公告)号：US11513808B2

公开(公告)日：2022-11-29

申请号：US16456931

申请日：2019-06-28

申请人： Intel Corporation

发明人： Vinay Raghav ,  Prashant Sethi ,  Robert Gough ,  Reuven Rozic ,  Uri Soloveychik

IPC分类号： G06F9/4401 ,  G06F13/38 ,  G06F1/3215

摘要： Automatic-switching and deployment of software (SW)- or firmware (FW)-based USB4 connection managers (CMs) and associated methods, apparatus, software and firmware. A handshake is defined between BIOS and an operating system (OS) to discover supported CM capability and dynamically switch from a FW CM to a SW CM and visa verse if there is a mismatch. In addition, a mechanism is defined to deploy the correct FW or SW CM driver based on class code, 2-part or 4-part ID. Support for continued USB4 operation during an OS upgrade or downgrade is provided, while ensuring that the best possible CM solution is used based on the advertised platform and OS capability. USB4 controllers support a pass-through mode under which the host controller FW redirects control packets sent between an SW CM and a USB4 fabric, and a FW CM mode under which control packets are communicated between the host controller FW and the USB4 fabric to configure USB4 peripheral devices and/or USB4 hubs in the USB4 fabric.