HDMI communication over twisted pairs

• US 20090147864A1
• Filed: 01/04/2009
• Published: 06/11/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 02/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Valens Semiconductor Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Valens Semiconductor Ltd.
• Inventors: Cohen, Gaby Gur, Lida, Eyran, Banet, Nadav
• Granted Patent: US 9,398,240 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 375/257
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 25/4919 using balanced multilevel codes H04L25/4927 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 27/0008 arrangements for allowing a transmitter or receiver to use more than one type of modulation negotiating modulation type for two-way transmission paths H04L5/1453
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/14 Two-way operation using the same type of signal, i.e. duplex
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/143 for modulated signals H04L5/1469 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/43632 involving a wired protocol, e.g. IEEE 1394 high-speed IEEE 1394 serial bus H04L12/40052
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/38 Transmitter circuitry for the transmission of television signals according to analogue transmission standards H04N5/14 takes precedence

Abstract

A method of transmitting a data stream over a communication channel, the method comprising: providing symbol sets having different numbers of symbols; modulating data in the data stream that warrant different degrees of protection against noise onto symbols from symbol sets having different numbers of symbols, wherein which symbol set given data in the stream is modulated onto is independent of symbol sets onto which other data in the data stream is modulated onto; and transmitting the symbols.

Claims

1. A link comprising:

a first port coupling the first side of the link to a TMDS source device and to a first bidirectional data device;

a second port coupling the second side of the link to a TMDS sink device and to a second bidirectional data device; and

a cable made of wires;

wherein and at least one of the wires transfers both the TMDS data in the source-to-sink direction and the bidirectional data in the opposite direction.

2. The link of claim 1, wherein the link provides better signal protection to the first bidirectional data compared to the signal protection provided to the TMDS data.

3. The link of claim 2, wherein the first bidirectional data is transmitted using a first modulation and the TMDS data is transmitted using a second modulation.

4. The link of claim 3, wherein the first and the second modulations are pulse amplitude modulations.

5. The link of claim 3, wherein the first and the second modulations are pulse amplitude modulations using at least partially overlapping subsets of the same symbol set.

6. The link of claim 1, wherein the link transmits at least two data types using at least two different modulations providing different levels of protection against noise.

7. The link of claim 6, wherein the different modulations are pulse amplitude modulations.

8. The link of claim 7, wherein the different modulations use at least partially overlapping subsets of the same symbol set.

9. The link of claim 1, wherein the TMDS source and sink devices are HDMI source and sink devices.

10. The link of claim 9, wherein the link also transfers HDMI control data.

11. The link of claim 10, wherein the HDMI control data comprises one or more of the following:

I2C, CLC, HPD, or 5V indication.

12. The link of claim 1, wherein the cable is selected from the group of:

CAT5, CAT5e, CAT6, CAT6a, and CAT7.

13. The link of claim 1, wherein the first port is coupled to two or more TMDS source devices.

14. The link of claim 13, wherein the second port is coupled to two or more TMDS sink devices.

15. The link of claim 1, wherein the bidirectional data comprises one or more of the following:

DVI control signal data, HDMI control signal data, I2C, CLC, HPD, 5V indication, or a combination thereof.

16. The link of claim 1, wherein the bidirectional data comprises Ethernet data.

17. A method for operating a link, the method comprising:

communicating with at least one HDMI source and at least one HDMI sink;

multiplexing the HDMI TMDS data and the HDMI control data; and

transmitting the multiplexed data over the same wires.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising modulating the HDMI TMDS data with a first modulation providing a first level of protection against noise, and modulating the HDMI control data with a second modulation providing a second level of protection against noise.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the first and the second modulations are pulse amplitude modulations.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the first and the second modulations use at least partially overlapping subsets of the same symbol set.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the symbol set is PAM-16.

22. The method of claim 17, further comprising the step of receiving the multiplexed result and mapping the symbols comprised in the multiplexed result to the appropriate demodulators.

23. The method of claim 17, further comprising transmitting the multiplexed data utilizing a link rate that is independent of the HDMI TMDS clock.

24. The method of claim 17, wherein the wires are a cable selected from the group of:

CAT5, CAT5e, CAT6, CAT6a, and CAT7.

25. The method of claim 17, further comprising the step of arranging the multiplexed data into packets, wherein the packets do not include additional data related to the video format.

26. The method of claim 17, further comprising the step of arranging the multiplexed data into packets, wherein the packets do not include the following data:

picture line number, video frame number, sequence number of the frame.

27. The method of claim 17, wherein the HDMI source signals comprise HDMI video, audio, and control signal data.

28. A communication link comprising:

means for multiplexing TMDS source data and a first direction of a bidirectional data channel;

means for transmitting the multiplexed data, over a cable made of wires, utilizing a first frequency band, while receiving the second direction of the bidirectional data channel over at least a subset of the wires utilized for the transmission, wherein the received data utilizes a second frequency band that at least partially overlaps with the first frequency band.

29. The communication link of claim 28, wherein the multiplexed data comprises at least two different modulations providing different levels of protection against noise.

30. The communication link of claim 29, wherein the different modulations are pulse amplitude modulations.

31. The communication link of claim 29, wherein the different modulations use at least partially overlapping subsets of the same symbol set.

32. The communication link of claim 31, wherein the symbol set is PAM-16.

33. The communication link of claim 28, wherein the cable is selected from the group of:

CAT5, CAT5e, CAT6, CAT6a, and CAT7.

34. The communication link of claim 28, further comprising means for arranging the multiplexed data into packets, wherein the packets do not include additional data related to the video format.

35. The communication link of claim 28, further comprising means for arranging the multiplexed data into packets, wherein the packets do not include at least one of the following data:

picture line number, video frame number, or sequence number of the frame.

36. The communication link of claim 28, wherein the bidirectional data comprises one or more of the following:

DVI control signal data, HDMI control signal data, I2C, CEC, HPD, 5V indication, or a combination thereof.

37. The communication link of claim 28, wherein the bidirectional data comprises Ethernet data.

38. The communication link of claim 28, wherein the communication link is agnostic to the video format.