Method and apparatus for performing trellis coded modulation of signals for transmission on a TDMA channel of a cable network

• US 20080263426A1
• Filed: 05/15/2008
• Published: 10/23/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/13/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Hebsgaard, Anders, Zaleski, Kenneth G.
• Granted Patent: US 8,208,573 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/752
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/006 Trellis-coded modulation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0065 Serial concatenated codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/3416 in which the information is carried by both the individual signal points and the subset to which the individual points belong, e.g. using coset coding, lattice coding, or related schemes

Abstract

A method and apparatus for performing trellis coded modulation of signals for transmission on a TDMA channel of a cable network, such as a DOCSIS cable network, is provided. In an embodiment, an upstream modulator portion of a cable modem receives burst data, selectively encodes the burst data for trellis coded modulation to generate encoded symbols, and modulates the encoded symbols for selective transmission over a time division multiple access (TDMA) channel or a synchronous code division multiple access (S-CDMA) channel of the cable network.

Claims

1. A method for generating a plurality of blocks of encoded data, comprising:

(A) encoding a plurality of blocks of data to generate a first plurality of blocks of encoded data, wherein the first plurality of blocks of encoded data includes complete blocks of encoded data and incomplete blocks of encoded data; and

(B) encoding the complete blocks of encoded data and not encoding the incomplete blocks of encoded data to generate a second plurality of blocks of encoded data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein step (B) comprises:

(B)(i) trellis encoding the complete blocks of encoded data to generate a plurality of trellis encoded blocks of encoded data.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein step (A) comprises:

(A)(i) encoding the plurality of blocks of data to generate one or more blocks of data and one or more blocks of added parity data.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein step (B) comprises:

(B)(i) encoding the complete blocks of encoded data that are substantially aligned with an outer encoder block size.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein step (A) comprises:

(A)(i) outer encoding the plurality of blocks of data to generate a plurality of blocks of outer encoded data, wherein the plurality of blocks of outer encoded data includes complete blocks of outer encoded data and incomplete blocks of outer encoded data.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein step (B) comprises:

(B)(i) inner encoding the complete blocks of outer encoded data and not encoding the incomplete blocks of outer encoded data.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

(C) combining the complete blocks of encoded data that were encoded with the incomplete blocks of encoded data that were not encoded to generate the second plurality of blocks of encoded data.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein step (A) comprises:

(A)(i) Reed Solomon encoding a plurality of blocks of data to generate a plurality of blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data, wherein a first plurality of blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data includes complete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data and incomplete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein step (B) comprises:

(B)(i) encoding the complete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data and not encoding the incomplete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein step (B) comprises:

(B)(i) trellis encoding the complete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data and not encoding the incomplete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data.

11. An apparatus for generating a plurality of blocks of encoded data, comprising:

a first encoder to encode a plurality of blocks of data to generate a first plurality of blocks of encoded data, wherein the first plurality of blocks of encoded data includes complete blocks of encoded data and incomplete blocks of encoded data; and

a second encoder to encode the complete blocks of encoded data and not encode the incomplete blocks of encoded data to generate a second plurality of blocks of encoded data.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the second encoder comprises:

a trellis encoder to encode the complete blocks of encoded data to generate a plurality of trellis encoded blocks of encoded data.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the first encoder encodes the plurality of blocks of data to generate one or more blocks of data and one or more blocks of added parity data.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the second encoder encodes the complete blocks of encoded data that are substantially aligned with an outer encoder block size.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the first encoder comprises:

an outer encoder to encode the plurality of blocks of data to generate a plurality of blocks of outer encoded data, wherein the plurality of blocks of outer encoded data includes complete blocks of outer encoded data and incomplete blocks of outer encoded data.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the second encoder comprises:

an inner encoder to encode inner encoding the complete blocks of outer encoded data and not to encode the incomplete blocks of outer encoded data.

17. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising:

a modulator to combine the complete blocks of encoded data that were encoded with the incomplete blocks of encoded data that were not encoded to generate the second plurality of blocks of encoded data.

18. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the first encoder comprises:

a Reed Solomon encoder to encode a plurality of blocks of data to generate a plurality of blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data, wherein a first plurality of blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data includes complete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data and incomplete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the second encoder encodes the complete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data and does not encode the incomplete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data.

20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the second encoder comprises:

a trellis encoder to encode the complete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data and not to encode the incomplete blocks of Reed Solomon encoded data.