CN100483378C - PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card and communication device with the same - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card, which comprises a PCI-Express interface port which can be inserted into a PCI-Express slot of a mainboard, a PCI-Express expansion port, a USB expansion port and a jumper circuit which is connected between the PCI-Express interface port and the two expansion ports. The PCI-Express expansion port can be used for expanding and connecting a PCI-Express interface peripheral device, and the USB expansion port can be used for expanding and connecting a USB interface peripheral device. Therefore, a single PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card can be expanded and connected with two peripheral devices with different interfaces on a single PCI-Express slot arranged on a mainboard, thereby achieving the function of multi-mode expansion.

Description

PCI-Express multimode expansion card and communication device with said expansion card

technical field

The present invention relates to a PCI card and its communication device, in particular to a PCI-Express slot that can be inserted into a motherboard, and the PCI-Express slot is provided with an expansion link to a PCI-Express slot. A multi-mode expansion card for an Express interface peripheral device and a USB interface peripheral device and a communication device with the expansion card.

Background technique

In the past, PCI (Peripheral Component Interface) in personal computers was used to provide a transmission interface specification for connecting different functional devices, such as: VGA display card (Video Graphics Array; VGA), sound card, network card, data card , Image capture card, TV card, SCSI card, and 1394 expansion card, etc. Among them, the PCI peripheral devices need to share and use the total bandwidth of the PCI, so when there are more PCI peripheral devices connected, the bandwidth available for each device will be less, so that the transmission speed of each device will increase. restricted.

Nowadays, the processing speed of personal computers and the amount of data to be transmitted by various peripheral devices have been greatly increased, and faster bandwidth is required to carry the transmission. Therefore, the bandwidth that PCI can carry is not enough, and it becomes a bottleneck in data transmission inside the computer. For this reason, Intel Corporation has begun to lead the development of a new generation of PCI-Express transmission interface specifications, which can provide faster bandwidth for more efficient data transmission between peripheral devices. For example: the computing processing of the 3D image in the game, besides needing to have the fast central processing unit, also need to have fast bandwidth to pass to transmit its computing result to the described display card; Others such as Gigabit Ethernet (GigaByte Ethernet), ultra wideband (Ultra Wideband; UWB for short) wireless network, high definition content-related hardware (high definition content-related hardware) and disk array control card (RAIDController), etc., all require high bandwidth and constant For connection efficiency, only the PCI-Express transmission interface specification can meet the requirements.

At present, in general personal computers, in response to the consideration of the production cost of the mainboard and the internal space of the personal computer, most of the mainboards only have one or two PCI-Express slots, so the PCI-Express slots that users can connect and use The number of peripheral devices related to the -Express interface is also limited, which is a fly in the ointment.

Contents of the invention

The main purpose of the present invention is to provide a PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card, which can be inserted in the PCI-Express slot of a mainboard, and provide that the PCI-Express slot is expanded to connect a PCI-Express interface peripheral The multi-mode expansion function of the device and a USB interface peripheral device.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a communication device with a PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card, and the communication device may be an ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless network device. The communication device (ultra wideband (UWB) wireless network device) can be connected to the PCI-Express slot of the motherboard through the PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card for use.

For reaching the aforementioned purpose, in a preferred embodiment of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card of the present invention, it is to comprise a PCI-Express interface port, a first expansion port, a second expansion port, and a jump wire circuit. The PCI-Express interface port is arranged on one side of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card and has at least including: several USB interface pins and several PCI-Express interface pins. The first expansion port is an interface port conforming to the PCI-Express specification, and the second expansion port is an interface port conforming to the USB specification. The jumper circuit is connected between the PCI-Express interface port and the first expansion port and between the PCI-Express interface port and the second expansion port. Wherein, the first expansion port is at least connected to the PCI-Express interface pin through the jumper circuit, and the second expansion port is at least connected to the USB interface pin through the jumper circuit . Therefore, the first expansion port can be used to expand and connect a first peripheral device supporting a PCI-Express interface, and the second expansion port can be used to expand and connect a second peripheral device supporting a USB interface. Described first extension port is used for expansion connection a first peripheral device that supports PCI-Express interface, and described second expansion port is used for expansion connection a second peripheral device that supports USB interface; Described PCI-Express interface port There are 52 pins, and the first expansion port is at least connected to the 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th, 29th, 31st, 33rd and 35th pins of the PCI-Express interface port through a jumper circuit, and at the same time , the second expansion port is at least connected to the No. 34, 36, 38 and No. 40 pins of the PCI-Express interface port through a jumper circuit; and, it is not set on the PCI-Express multimode expansion card Any signal conversion circuit, and only the jumper circuit is set. In a preferred embodiment, one of the first expansion port or the second expansion port is connected to an ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless network device. The ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless network device further includes: a connection interface port, which can be plugged into one of the expansion ports of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card for transmission and conforms to the communication protocol supported by the expansion port data signal, an antenna for sending and receiving UWB wireless signals, a UWB front-end unit connected to the antenna, a UWB control unit connected to the UWB front-end unit for signal modulation, and a signal conversion module connected to the UWB control Between the unit and the connection interface port, signal conversion between the communication protocol supported by the expansion port and the UWB communication protocol can be performed. Through this design, the effect of indirectly connecting the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless network device to the PCI-Express slot of the motherboard can be achieved. At the same time, another expansion port of the PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card can also be used to connect and use other peripheral devices (such as but not limited to wireless local area network (WLAN) devices).

The above and other technical features and advantages of the present invention will be described in more detail below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Description of drawings

Fig. 1 is the structural representation that PCI-Express multimode expansion card of the present invention is connected with host end;

Fig. 2 is the circuit structure block diagram of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card of the present invention and the block schematic diagram connected with external devices;

Fig. 3 is the standard PCI-Express pin function definition diagram that has on the PCI-Express multimode expansion card of the present invention;

4 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card of the present invention, which is simultaneously connected with two sets of wireless transceivers (that is, peripheral devices) with different communication interfaces.

Description of reference signs: 1—host; 2—main board; 21—PCI-Express slot; 3—PCI-Express multimode expansion card; 31—PCI-Express interface port; 311—USB pin; 312—LED pin 32—the first expansion port; 33—the second expansion port; 34—the jumper circuit; 41—the first peripheral device; 42—the second peripheral device; 43—ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless transceiver; 431—antenna ; 432—UWB front-end unit; 433—UWB control unit; 434—signal conversion module; 435—PCI-E connection interface port; 44—wireless local area network (WLAN) wireless transceiver; 441—antenna; 442—UWB front-end unit; 443—UWB control unit; 444—signal conversion module; 445—USB connection interface port.

Detailed ways

The main technical feature of the PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card of the present invention is that in the connection interface regulated by the PCI-Express standard, in addition to the pins used to transmit the PCI-Express signal, additional built-in USB2.0 connection pin. Therefore, on the PCI-Express multimode expansion card of the present invention, in addition to being provided with the expansion port conforming to the PCI-Express pin position, the USB2. Extend out and form another expansion port. In this way, the PCI-Express multimode expansion card of the present invention can expand and connect two peripheral devices (one using the PCI-Express communication protocol and the other using the USB2. 0 communication protocol) to achieve the function of multi-mode expansion.

In order to describe the PCI-Express multimode expansion card proposed by the present invention more clearly, the following will list the embodiment to describe in detail the PCI-Express multimode expansion card of the present invention and the communication with said PCI-Express multimode expansion card. A device, and a detailed description of how it is used.

Please refer to Fig. 1, Fig. 2, shown in Fig. 3, it is respectively the structural representation that the PCI-Express multimode expansion card of the present invention connects with the host end, the circuit architecture block diagram of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card and its connection with the outside A block schematic diagram of device connection, and a function definition diagram of standard PCI-Express pins on the PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card of the present invention.

As shown in Figure 1, the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 of the present invention can be inserted in a PCI-Express slot 21 on the motherboard 2 in the main computer 1, and makes the motherboard 2 and The PCI-Express multi-mode expansion cards 3 can be connected and communicate with each other through slot pins and communication protocols conforming to the PCI-Express specification. Of course, the computer mainframe 1 may be a desktop computer mainframe as shown in FIG. 1 , or it may be a notebook computer, a miniature barebone system, or a server system or the like. And, in described host computer 1, except that described motherboard 2 and PCI-Express slot 21, also can be provided with other components and devices, for example but not limited to: central processing unit, some PCI slots, DRAM, Hard Disk, Power Supply, etc. Since these components belong to the prior art and are not technical features of the present invention, they will not be described in detail here.

Please continue to refer to Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 of the present invention further includes: a PCI-Express interface port 31, a first expansion port 32, a second expansion port 33 and a jumper circuit 34. The PCI-Express interface port 31 is in a structure commonly known as a golden finger, which includes several metal pins. And, the size structure of described PCI-Express interface port 31 is the slot pin that meets aforementioned PCI-Express specification, so that can be directly inserted in the PCI-Express slot 21 of main board 2 and make both electrical properties connect.

In the preferred embodiment of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 of the present invention shown in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, described PCI-Express interface port 31 is arranged on the side of PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 side for plugging in the PCI-Express slot 21 of the motherboard 2. The first expansion port 32 and the second expansion port 33 are arranged near the other side of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 for connecting a first peripheral device 41 and a second peripheral device 42 . The PCI-Express interface port 31 is connected with the two expansion ports 32 and 33 by a jumper circuit 34 .

As shown in FIG. 3 , the PCI-Express interface port 31 of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 of the present invention conforms to the standard PCI-Express specification and has 52 pins in total. Among them, pins 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, and 35 are pins used to transmit PCI-Express signals; pins 9, 11, 13, and 15 are transmission references Frequency signal (Reference Clock) pins; pins 34, 36, 38, and 40 are USB2.0 interface pins 311 supported by the standard PCI-Express specification; and pins 42, 44, and 46 The LED pins 312 belong to three groups of LEDs. Described LED pin position 312 is to be connected to some LED lamps (not shown) that are set on the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3, so that the user can know described PCI-Express multimode expansion by the lamp signal display. Action status of card 3.

In the present embodiment shown in FIGS. 1 to 3 , the first expansion port 32 is an interface slot conforming to the MiniPCI-Express specification. Each pin position of the first expansion port 32 is to be connected to the described pin positions used to transmit PCI-Express signals in the PCI-Express interface port 31 by the jumper circuit 34 (that is, as shown in FIG. 3 pins 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, and 35 shown). Certainly, in another embodiment, described first expansion port 32 also can be a standard PCI-Express slot with 52 pin positions, and at this moment, all 52 pin positions of PCI-Express interface port 31 are All are connected to the first expansion port 32 through the jumper circuit 34 . In this way, the first peripheral device 41 connected to the first expansion port 32 can use the PCI-Express interface and communication protocol to communicate with the motherboard 2 .

Moreover, the second expansion port 33 is an interface slot conforming to the USB2.0 interface specification. Each pin position of the second expansion port 33 is connected to the pin positions used to transmit USB2.0 signals in the PCI-Express interface port 31 through the jumper circuit 34 (that is, as shown in FIG. 3 pins 34, 36, 38, and 40 shown). In this way, the second peripheral device 42 connected to the second expansion port 33 can use the USB2.0 interface and communication protocol to communicate with the motherboard 2 .

By the PCI-Express multi-mode expansion card 3 of the present invention, only need to use simple jumper circuit 34 to connect between its PCI-Express interface port 31 and two expansion ports 32,33, do not need to set up extra drive at all Chip or signal conversion circuit to carry out the conversion of signal or communication protocol, therefore can make the circuit complexity and the design cost of described PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 all very low, and can reach again on the motherboard 2 at the same time The PCI-Express slot 21 expands and connects two sets of peripheral devices 41 and 42 with different interface specifications for multi-mode expansion.

In this embodiment, the first peripheral device 41 can be a peripheral device with a PCI-Express or MiniPCI-Express specification interface, such as but not limited to: PCI-E display card, disk array expansion card, wireless local area network WLAN device, UWB wireless network device, GigaByte Ethernet device, etc. At the same time, the second peripheral device 42 can be a peripheral device with a USB or USB2.0 standard interface, such as but not limited to: USB hub, USB wireless local area network (WLAN) device, USB Bluetooth transmitter, USB Ultra Wideband (UWB) wireless network device, USB Ethernet LAN (Ethernet LAN) device, or USB input device, etc.

Please refer to FIG. 4 , which is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 of the present invention, which is simultaneously connected with two sets of wireless transceivers 43 and 44 (that is, peripheral devices) with different communication interfaces. Wherein, the wireless transceiver 43 is an ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless transceiver 43 that supports the PCI-Express interface specification, and it further includes: an antenna 431, a UWB front-end unit 432, a UWB control unit 433, and a signal conversion module 434 and a PCI-Express connection interface port 435 .

The antenna 431 is used to enhance the sending and receiving of UWB wireless signals. The UWB front-end unit 432 is electrically connected to the antenna 431, and it can reduce or enhance the signal sent and received by the antenna 431 to facilitate transmission and reception. The UWB control unit 433 is connected with the UWB front-end unit 432, and can modulate the data signal to be sent into a UWB wireless signal, or demodulate the received UWB wireless signal into a data signal. The signal conversion module 434 is connected to the UWB control unit 433 and can perform data signal conversion between the UWB communication protocol and the PCI-Express communication protocol. And described PCI-Express connection interface port 435 is then connected to be signal conversion module 434, and it is to meet PCI-Express interface specification and can be plugged on the first expansion port 32 of PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 for supplying Transmit data signals that conform to the PCI-Express communication protocol.

And, another wireless transceiver 44 is a wireless local area network (WLAN) wireless transceiver 44 that supports USB interface specifications, and it further includes: an antenna 441, a wireless network front-end unit 442, a wireless network control unit 443, a The signal conversion module 444 and a USB connection interface port 445 .

The antenna 441 is used for sending and receiving wireless signals. The wireless network front-end unit 442 is electrically connected to the antenna 441 to perform signal noise reduction or enhancement processing. The wireless network control unit 443 is connected with the wireless network front-end unit 442, and can modulate the data signal to be sent into a WLAN wireless signal, or demodulate the received WLAN wireless signal into a data signal . The signal conversion module 444 is connected to the wireless network control unit 443 and can perform data signal conversion between the USB communication protocol and the WLAN communication protocol. The USB connection interface port 445 is then connected to the signal conversion module 444, which is an interface port meeting the USB2.0 interface specification, and can be plugged into the second expansion port 33 of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 It is used to transmit data signals conforming to the USB or USB2.0 communication protocol.

By the embodiment shown in Fig. 4, PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 of the present invention will be able to connect described ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless transceiver 43 and a wireless local area network (WLAN) wireless transceiver 44 simultaneously, and, The ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless transceiver 43 communicates and transmits signals with the motherboard (not shown in this figure) of the connected computer host using the PCI-Express communication protocol, and the wireless local area network (WLAN) wireless transceiver 44 is to use the USB communication protocol to transmit data signals, not only can the host computer support the wireless transceivers 43 and 44 of two communication modes at the same time, but also only need to use the PCI-Express slot of a single host computer , completely overcome the defects of the prior art.

Of course, in another embodiment, the aforementioned ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless transceiver 43 is modified and designed to support the USB2.0 interface specification and is connected to the second expansion port 33, and the wireless local area network (WLAN) The wireless transceiver 44 is modified to support the PCI-Express interface specification and is connected to the second expansion port 32 . Alternatively, only one wireless transceiver is connected to one expansion port of the PCI-Express multimode expansion card 3 of the present invention, while the other expansion port is connected to other peripheral devices instead of the wireless transceiver.

The above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and are only illustrative rather than restrictive to the present invention. Those skilled in the art understand that many changes, modifications, and even equivalents can be made within the spirit and scope defined by the claims of the present invention, but all will fall within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims (6)

1. PCI-Express multimode expansion board is characterized in that it includes:

One PCI-Express interface port is arranged on a side of described PCI-Express multimode expansion board and has plural pin position, and described plural pin also includes in the position: some USB interface pin positions and some PCI-Express interface pin position;

One first docking station, it is the interface port of accord with PCI-Express standard;

One second docking station, it is the interface port that meets the USB standard; And,

One wire jumper circuit is connected between PCI-Express interface port and described first docking station and is connected between PCI-Express interface port and described second docking station; Wherein, described first docking station is to be connected with described PCI-Express interface pin position at least by described wire jumper circuit, and described second docking station then is to be connected with described USB interface pin position at least by the wire jumper circuit; Described first docking station is in order to first peripheral device of expansion connection one support PCI-Express interface, and described second docking station is in order to expand second peripheral device that connects a support USB interface;

Described PCI-Express interface port is to have 52 pin positions, and described first docking station is the 21st, 23,25,27,29,31, the 33 and No. 35 pin position that is connected to the PCI-Express interface port by the wire jumper circuit at least, simultaneously, described second docking station is the 34th, 36, the 38 and No. 40 pin position that is connected to the PCI-Express interface port by the wire jumper circuit at least; 9th, 11,13 and 15 pin positions are pin positions of transmission reference frequency signal; And,

On described PCI-Express multimode expansion board, any signal change-over circuit is not set, and described wire jumper circuit only is set.

2. PCI-Express multimode expansion board as claimed in claim 1, it is characterized in that, described PCI-Express interface port is plugged in the PCI-Express slot of a motherboard, and the plural pin position of described PCI-Express interface port also includes some LED pin positions that show the LED lamp in order to control.

3. the communication device with PCI-Express multimode expansion board is characterized in that, it includes a PCI-Express multimode expansion board and and has peripheral device with extraneous communication function, wherein:

One PCI-Express multimode expansion board, it includes a PCI-Express interface port, one first docking station, one second docking station and a wire jumper circuit:

One PCI-Express interface port, be arranged on described PCI-Express multimode expansion board a side and can be in the PCI-Express slot that is plugged on an extraneous motherboard, described PCI-Express interface port also comprises some USB interface pin positions and some PCI-Express interface pin position;

One first docking station, it is the interface port of accord with PCI-Express standard;

One second docking station, it is the interface port that meets the USB standard; And

One wire jumper circuit is connected between PCI-Express interface port and described first docking station and is connected between PCI-Express interface port and described second docking station;

Described first docking station can connect first peripheral device of a support PCI-Express interface in order to expansion, and described second docking station is in order to expand second peripheral device that connects a support USB interface;

Described PCI-Express interface port is to have 52 pin positions, and described first docking station is the 21st, 23,25,27,29,31, the 33 and No. 35 pin position that is connected to the PCI-Express interface port by the wire jumper circuit at least, simultaneously, described second docking station is the 34th, 36, the 38 and No. 40 pin position that is connected to the PCI-Express interface port by the wire jumper circuit at least; 9th, 11,13 and 15 pin positions are pin positions of transmission reference frequency signal; And, on described PCI-Express multimode expansion board, any signal change-over circuit is not set, and described wire jumper circuit only is set;

One has the peripheral device with extraneous communication function, described peripheral device be attached at described first docking station and second docking station one of them, and make peripheral device see through described PCI-Express interface port and carry out the signal transmission with described motherboard.

4. the communication device with PCI-Express multimode expansion board as claimed in claim 3, it is characterized in that, described peripheral device is: Wireless LAN device, Bluetooth transmission device and super wideband wireless network equipment one of them, and peripheral device is for supporting described PCI-Express interface or USB interface both one of them.

5. the communication device with PCI-Express multimode expansion board as claimed in claim 3 is characterized in that, described peripheral device is a wireless transceiver and is also to include:

One connecting interface port, it is plugged on the docking station wherein of PCI-Express multimode expansion board the data signals that meets the communications protocol that described docking station supports for transmission;

One antenna is in order to the transmitting/receiving wireless signal;

One front end unit is connected described antenna;

One control module is connected described front end unit in order to the modulation signal; And

One signal modular converter is connected between described control module and the connecting interface port, carries out the signal conversion work between the communications protocol of communications protocol that described docking station supports and described wireless transceiver.

6. communication device, it includes:

One PCI-Express multimode expansion board, it also includes: a PCI-Express interface port in the PCI-Express slot that is plugged on an extraneous motherboard, at least two docking stations and a wire jumper circuit be connected between PCI-Express interface port and described two docking stations at least; And,

One super wideband wireless network equipment, it also includes: it is plugged on the docking station wherein of PCI-Express multimode expansion board the data signals that meets the communications protocol that described docking station supports for transmission a connecting interface port, one antenna is in order to transmitting-receiving super wideband wireless signal, one ultra broadband front end unit is connected described antenna, one ultra broadband control module is connected described ultra broadband front end unit in order to the modulation signal, and one the signal modular converter be connected between described ultra broadband control module and the connecting interface port, can carry out communications protocol that described docking station supports and the signal conversion work between the ultra-wide band communication agreement;

Described at least two docking stations are to include one first docking station and one second docking station, and wherein, described first docking station is the interface port of accord with PCI-Express standard, and described second docking station is the interface port that meets the USB standard; And described PCI-Express interface port more includes some USB interface pin positions and some PCI-Express interface pin position; Wherein, described first docking station is to be connected with described PCI-Express interface pin position at least by described wire jumper circuit, and described second docking station then is to be connected with described USB interface pin position at least by the wire jumper circuit; Therefore, described first docking station is in order to first peripheral device of expansion connection one support PCI-Express interface, and described second docking station is in order to expand second peripheral device that connects a support USB interface;

The plural pin position of described PCI-Express interface port is also to include: some LED pin position shows the LED cresset in order to control;

Described PCI-Express interface port is to have 52 pin positions, and described first docking station is the 21st, 23,25,27,29,31, the 33 and No. 35 pin position that is connected to the PCI-Express interface port by the wire jumper circuit at least, simultaneously, described second docking station is the 34th, 36, the 38 and No. 40 pin position that is connected to the PCI-Express interface port by the wire jumper circuit at least; 9th, 11,13 and 15 pin positions are pin positions of transmission reference frequency signal; And,

On described PCI-Express multimode expansion board, any signal change-over circuit is not set, and described wire jumper circuit only is set.

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