JP2009230206A - Information processor and information processing method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information processor effectively collecting abnormality information in a circuit board. <P>SOLUTION: In each circuit board 230, frequency information of ON/OFF of a power supply is recorded in a nonvolatile memory 237 by a memory controller 236 independently of software control by a control processor. When abnormality is monitored by a memory monitoring function 231, a communication monitoring function 232, a data monitoring function 233, and various kinds of monitoring functions 234, the abnormality information is efficiently recorded in the nonvolatile memory 237 by the memory controller 236 without depending on software of the control processor. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and an information processing method for performing various information processing.

When an abnormality occurs in each circuit board that constitutes the information processing apparatus or when an abnormality is found in the communication path, the CPU notifies the abnormal state to the CPU that controls each circuit board and the abnormality information is collected by the CPU. This corresponds to recovery from a failure (for example, Patent Document 1).
JP-A-11-149392.

  By the way, since the abnormality monitoring by the CPU is realized by software, lack of abnormality information occurs due to omission of recording due to occurrence of software abnormality due to circuit abnormality and simplification of abnormality monitoring recording due to limitation of software capacity.

  Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an information processing apparatus and an information processing method that can effectively collect abnormality information from a circuit board.

  An information processing apparatus according to the present invention includes a plurality of processing circuits that execute different information processing when the power is turned on, and a control circuit that is connected to the plurality of processing circuits via an internal bus and comprehensively controls information processing And a recording unit that is provided in each of the plurality of processing circuits and that records power ON / OFF frequency information in a nonvolatile memory independently of the control by the control circuit.

  According to this configuration, information on the number of times the power is turned on / off is recorded in the nonvolatile memory of each processing circuit independently of the control by the control circuit. Therefore, it is possible to determine the abnormal state of each processing circuit from the information on the number of times the power is turned on / off. This makes it possible to record omissions due to the occurrence of software abnormalities in the control circuit, and to simplify the abnormality monitoring recording due to software capacity limitations. The shortage of abnormal information can be resolved.

  Each of the plurality of processing circuits includes an abnormality monitoring unit that monitors an abnormality in the own circuit, and the recording unit records the abnormality information in the nonvolatile memory when the abnormality information is detected by the abnormality monitoring unit. Features.

  According to this configuration, when an abnormality occurs in each processing circuit, the abnormality information is efficiently recorded in the non-volatile memory in each processing circuit without depending on the software of the control circuit, thereby reducing the software load. Thus, it is possible to collect detailed abnormality information, and to shorten the time for identifying the faulty part.

  The recording means records time information from the time of start-up when the power is turned on together with the abnormality information.

  According to this configuration, the abnormality occurrence time can be reliably checked by recording the time information from the start-up time together with the abnormality information in each processing circuit in the nonvolatile memory.

  As described above in detail, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide an information processing apparatus and an information processing method that can effectively collect abnormality information from a circuit board.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

  FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an information processing apparatus 200 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

  In FIG. 1, a control processing device 220 and circuit boards 230, 240, 250 are connected on a system bus 210. Among these, the circuit board 230 performs, for example, an A / D (analog / digital) conversion or a D / A (digital / analog) conversion function. The circuit board 240 executes processing of signals input from a system (not shown). The circuit board 250 executes communication processing with a system (not shown).

  The control processing device 220 comprehensively controls information processing of each circuit board 230, 240, 250 by internal software.

  On the other hand, the circuit boards 230, 240, and 250 are configured as follows. FIG. 2 is a circuit block diagram showing the configuration. Here, the circuit board 230 will be described as a representative.

  The circuit board 230 includes a memory monitoring function 231, a communication monitoring function 232, a data monitoring function 233, various monitoring functions 234, an abnormality information collection register 235, a memory control 236, a nonvolatile memory 237, a counter 238, It has.

  The memory monitoring function 231 monitors the memory state and outputs the monitoring information. The communication monitoring function 232 monitors the communication state and outputs the monitoring information. The data monitoring function 233 monitors the data state and outputs the monitoring information. The various monitoring functions 234 monitor various states such as a power supply state and output the monitoring information.

  The abnormality information collection register 235 takes in the monitoring information of the memory monitoring function 231, the monitoring information of the communication monitoring function 232, the monitoring information of the data monitoring function 233, and the monitoring information of various monitoring functions 234, and is nonvolatile via the memory control 236. Record in the memory 237. The memory control 236 sends the latest monitoring information to the control processing device 220 each time a monitoring data transmission request from the control processing device 220 arrives.

Next, the operation in the above configuration will be described.
Conventionally, abnormality information is collected by software of the control processing device 220 in the information processing device 200. The collected abnormality information is used for switching operations and searching for a faulty part. In particular, a lot of time may be spent in searching for a failure site. Problems with collecting abnormal information by software include the problem of securing the software capacity and abnormal information recording area, the problem of stopping the software operation depending on the abnormal part of the circuit board, and the software processing for abnormal recording In other words, there is a problem that the load of the original processing becomes. The problem of securing software capacity and anomaly information recording area becomes a problem especially in embedded devices that do not have a large-capacity non-volatile medium such as an HDD (Hard Disk Drive).

  Therefore, in this embodiment, the nonvolatile memory 237 is mounted on each circuit board 230, 240, 250, and abnormality information of each circuit board 230, 240, 250 is recorded and collected in this nonvolatile memory 237. As a result, it is possible to reduce the software load and to collect detailed abnormality information, and to shorten the time for identifying the faulty part.

  When writing to the non-volatile memory 237, the counter 238 records the activation time count value from the activation of the information processing apparatus 200 or the RTC time.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the abnormality information recording process by the memory controller 236. FIG. 4 shows the timing of abnormal recording. FIG. 5 shows an example of a recording format to the nonvolatile memory 237.

  After activation of the information processing apparatus 200, that is, when the power supply shown in FIG. 4 is turned on (step ST4a), the memory controller 236 first starts the nonvolatile memory 237 from the number of activations of the information processing apparatus 200 so far and the memory used for abnormal recording. The capacity is confirmed (steps ST4b, ST4c, ST4d). 5 is added to the number of times the information processing apparatus 200 has been activated so far, and the area storing the number of times the information processing apparatus 200 has been activated is rewritten with the recording format shown in FIG. 5 (step ST4e). As soon as the preparation up to this point is completed, the operation monitoring of the circuit boards 230, 240, 250 is monitored until the power is turned off (between t1 in FIG. 4) (step ST4f).

  If an abnormality occurs during the preparation period, the memory controller 236 writes the abnormality information immediately after the preparation is completed. When an abnormality occurs (step ST4g), the memory controller 236 writes the number of times of activation at the time of current activation, the number of times of abnormality at the time of current activation, the time of occurrence of abnormality at the time of current activation, and abnormality information (step ST4h) The capacity is rewritten (step ST4i). Thereafter, when the writing is completed, the memory controller 236 enters a standby state (IDLE in FIG. 4). In addition, the memory controller 236 writes abnormality information to the nonvolatile memory 237 in the same manner every time an abnormality occurs.

  The abnormality information collected on each circuit board 230, 240, 250 can be used to identify the failure site and the cause of failure by comparing the number of activations, activation time, and abnormality content.

  As described above, in the above-described embodiment, in each circuit board 230, 240, 250, information on the number of times the power is turned on / off is independent of software control by the control processing device 220. In the non-volatile memory 237.

  Therefore, it is possible to determine the abnormal state of each circuit board 230, 240, 250 from the information on the number of times of turning on / off the power supply. The lack of abnormality information due to simplification of abnormality monitoring records can be resolved.

  In the above embodiment, when an abnormality occurs in each circuit board 230, 240, 250, the abnormality information is efficiently stored in each circuit board 230, 240, 250 without depending on the software of the control processing device 220. 237 is recorded.

  Therefore, it is possible to reduce the software load on the control processing device 220 and to collect detailed abnormality information, and to shorten the time for identifying the faulty part.

  Further, in the above embodiment, the time information from the start-up time counted by the counter 238 is recorded in the nonvolatile memory 237 together with the abnormality information in each circuit board 230, 240, 250. Can also be checked reliably.

  Although the present invention has been described based on the above-described embodiment, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment as it is, and can be embodied by modifying constituent elements without departing from the scope of the invention in the implementation stage. In addition, various inventions can be formed by appropriately combining a plurality of components disclosed in the embodiment. For example, you may delete some components from all the components shown by the said embodiment.

1 is a block diagram of an information processing apparatus as an embodiment of the present invention. The circuit block diagram which shows the structure of the circuit board shown in the said FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a procedure for recording abnormal information by the memory controller shown in FIG. The figure which shows the timing of the abnormal recording in the said embodiment. The figure which shows an example of the recording format in the said embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

  DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 200 ... Information processing apparatus, 210 ... System bus, 220 ... Control processing apparatus, 230, 240, 250 ... Circuit board, 231 ... Memory monitoring function, 232 ... Communication monitoring function, 233 ... Data monitoring function, 234 ... Various monitoring functions, 235 ... Abnormal information collection register, 236 ... Memory controller, 237 ... Non-volatile memory, 238 ... Counter.

Claims (6)

A plurality of processing circuits that execute different information processing at power-on;
A control circuit connected to the plurality of processing circuits via an internal bus for overall control of the information processing;
An information processing system comprising: a recording unit that is provided in each of the plurality of processing circuits and records information on the number of times of turning on / off the power in a nonvolatile memory independently of the control by the control circuit. apparatus. Each of the plurality of processing circuits includes abnormality monitoring means for monitoring an abnormality in its own circuit,
The information processing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein when the abnormality information is detected by the abnormality monitoring unit, the recording unit records the abnormality information in the nonvolatile memory. The information processing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the recording unit records time information from a start-up at power-on together with the abnormality information. An information processing apparatus comprising: a plurality of processing circuits that execute different information processing when the power is turned on; and a control circuit that is connected to the plurality of processing circuits via an internal bus and controls the information processing in an integrated manner In the information processing method used,
An information processing method characterized in that in each of the plurality of processing circuits, information on the number of times the power is turned on / off is recorded in a nonvolatile memory independently of the control by the control circuit. Each of the plurality of processing circuits monitors an abnormality in its own circuit,
5. The information processing method according to claim 4, wherein when abnormality information is detected, the abnormality information is recorded in the nonvolatile memory. 6. The information processing method according to claim 5, wherein the plurality of processing circuits record time information from a start-up time when the power is turned on together with the abnormality information.

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