| CPC G06F 13/4282 (2013.01) [G06F 13/382 (2013.01); G06F 2213/0042 (2013.01)] | 22 Claims |

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1. A high-speed scalable backplane system for enabling communications in an industrial system between a pair of redundant central processing unit (CPU) modules and a plurality of industrial system modules, the industrial system modules comprising field input/output (I/O) and/or communication modules, the high-speed scalable backplane comprising:
a root hub associated with the CPU module, the root hub having a host port and defining a first tier of a tiered architecture; and
a plurality of Universal Serial Bus (USB) hubs sequentially coupled to each other and arranged according to the tiered architecture, each of the USB hubs having an upstream port and a plurality of downstream ports, wherein the plurality of USB hubs comprises:
a pair of top USB hubs defining a second tier of the tiered architecture, wherein one of the top USB hubs comprises an active hub and another one of the top USB hubs comprises a standby hub, the top USB hubs each having an upstream port thereof coupled to the host port of the root hub and connected to one of the CPU modules via a host coupled to the host port; and
one or more pairs of lower USB hubs each defining a successive tier of the tiered architecture, the lower USB hubs each having an upstream port thereof coupled to a selected downstream port of one of the USB hubs in an immediately preceding tier of the tiered architecture, wherein each of the industrial system modules has a unique address value specified in a USB packet such that the lower USB hubs are each configured to enable a plurality of I/O and/or communications connections for the industrial system modules via a plurality of downstream ports thereof, and wherein the connections are scalable as a function of a number of the industrial system modules using the high-speed scalable backplane in the industrial system.
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