Ethernet emulation using a shared mailbox between two processors in a feature phone

• US 6,987,961 B1
• Filed: 06/28/2004
• Issued: 01/17/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/28/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intellectual Ventures I LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Neomagic Corporation
• Inventors: Pothana, Sai K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Perez-Gutierrez, Rafael
• Assistant Examiner(s): Figueroa, Marisol
• Application Number:
  US10/710,238
• Time in Patent Office: 568 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 455/412.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/167 using a common memory, e.g. mailbox
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/16 Implementation or adaptation of Internet protocol [IP], of transmission control protocol [TCP] or of user datagram protocol [UDP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/161 Implementation details of TCP/IP or UDP/IP stack architecture; Specification of modified or new header fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/04 Network layer protocols, e.g. mobile IP [Internet Protocol]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/06 Transport layer protocols, e.g. TCP [Transport Control Protocol] over wireless transmission control protocol/Internet protocol [TCP/IP] or user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16

Abstract

A feature phone has a base-band processor and an applications processor that communicate with each other by emulating an internal Ethernet within the phone. TCP/IP stacks in each processor receive data from high-level applications for transmission to the other processor. Ethernet-emulating drivers are called by the IP layers. An Ethernet-emulating transmit driver writes IP-packet data to a shared memory and sends an interrupt to the other processor, which activates a receive routine that reads the IP packet data from the shared memory and sends it up through the TCP/IP stack. There is no twisted-pair cable or other media since the shared memory acts as the transfer media. A shared mailbox holds the packet length and sends an interrupt to one processor when written, while a general-purpose input-output GPIO module sends an interrupt to the other processor. The internal emulated-Ethernet is entirely within the phone and separate from cellular networks.

Claims

1. A feature wireless-communications device comprising:

a wireless transceiver circuit for sending and receiving wireless data over a wireless network using wireless protocols;

a base-band processor, coupled to control the wireless transceiver circuit, for executing routines using a first operating system that contains a first network stack for a network protocol that is a different protocol than the wireless protocols;

an applications processor for executing routines using a second operating system that contains a second network stack for the network protocol that is a different protocol than the wireless protocols;

a shared memory having a first buffer that is written by the base-band processor and read by the applications processor and a second buffer that is written by the applications processor and read by the base-band processor;

a first general-purpose input-output (GPIO) module, coupled to read a signal on a GPIO line and generate a first interrupt to the base-band processor in response to the signal on the GPIO line;

a second GPIO module, coupled to write the signal onto the GPIO line in response to a command from the applications processor;

a shared mailbox, coupled to be written by the applications processor and by the base-band processor, having a plurality of mailbox locations, wherein writing to a first mailbox location in the shared mailbox generates a second interrupt to the applications processor;

a first physical-network-emulating driver, executed by the base-band processor in response to the first interrupt, the first physical-network-emulating driver reading a first network packet from the second buffer in the shared memory in response to the first interrupt; and

a second physical-network-emulating driver, executed by the applications processor in response to the second interrupt, the second physical-network-emulating driver reading a second network packet from the first buffer in the shared memory in response to the second interrupt;

wherein the first network packet is sent to the first network stack by the first physical-network-emulating driver, the first network stack removing a packet header from the first network packet before sending data from the first network packet to a program executing on the base-band processor;

wherein the second network packet is sent to the second network stack by the second physical-network-emulating driver, the second network stack removing a packet header from the second network packet before sending data from the second network packet to an application program executing on the applications processor,

whereby communication between processors is emulated by the first and second physical-network-emulating drivers over an emulated physical network using the shared memory.

2. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 1 wherein the first physical-network-emulating driver further comprises:

a first transmit module, activated by the first network stack in response to data from the program executing on the base-band processor, the first transmit module writing the data encapsulated in the second network packet by the first network stack to the first buffer in the shared memory and writing to the first mailbox location in the shared mailbox to generate the second interrupt to the applications processor;

wherein the second physical-network-emulating driver further comprises;

a second transmit module, activated by the second network stack in response to data from the application program executing on the applications processor, the second transmit module writing the data encapsulated in the first network packet by the second network stack to the second buffer in the shared memory and commanding the second GPIO module to write the signal onto the GPIO line to generate the first interrupt to the base-band processor.

3. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 2 wherein the packet headers contain a source network address and a destination network address.

4. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 3 wherein the packet headers contain Internet Protocol IP addresses for the applications processor and for the base-band processor.

5. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 4 wherein the first network stack comprises a Transport-Control-Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) stack having a TCP layer and an IP layer;

wherein the second network stack comprises a TCP/IP stack having a TCP layer and an IP layer,

wherein the first and second network packets each have an IP header and a TCP header that are written into the shared memory.

6. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 5 wherein the first physical-network-emulating driver emulates an Ethernet or a token ring physical network or a local-area-network that encapsulate IP packets with a physical-network header having a physical-network address.

7. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 6 wherein the physical-network address is an internal Ethernet address that is not visible over the wireless network, or an internal media-access-controller MAC address.

8. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 4 wherein the first operating system and the second operating system are different operating systems, but the first network stack and the second network stack are for a same network protocol.

9. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 4 further comprising:

a display, coupled to the base-band processor, for displaying call information to a user generated by the baseband processor;

a keypad, coupled to the base-band processor, for receiving user inputs to the base-band processor, the user inputs including phone numbers for placing calls over the wireless network.

10. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 4 further comprising:

a first interrupt controller, coupled between the first GPIO module and the base-band processor;

a second interrupt controller, coupled between the shared mailbox and the applications processor.

11. The feature wireless-communications device of claim 4 further comprising:

a shared disk drive, coupled to the base-band processor, for storing data from the base-band processor in a first partition and for storing data for the applications processor in a second partition;

wherein the shared disk drive is accessed by the applications processor using the second physical-net-work-emulating driver.

12. A method for transferring data from a first processor to a second processor within a mobile device comprising:

receiving first application data from a first application executing on the first processor;

forming a first packet header with a network address of the second processor as a destination address and a network address of the first processor as a source address;

encapsulating the first application data with the first packet header to form a first network packet;

writing the first network packet to a shared memory using a first write pointer;

writing a packet length of the first network packet to a first shared mailbox;

activating an output line to the second processor to interrupt the second processor;

in response to the interrupt to the second processor, the second processor reading the packet length from the first shared mailbox;

reading the first network packet from the shared memory using a second read pointer and discarding any data past the packet length;

incrementing the second read pointer;

extracting the first application data from the first network packet by discarding the first packet header read from the shared memory using the second read pointer but passing the first application data to a second application executing on the second processor;

the second processor clearing the first shared mailbox; and

once the first shared mailbox has been cleared, incrementing the first write pointer and de-activating the output line,

whereby application data is encapsulated with the first packet header and stored in the shared memory, but never transmitted over a network medium when being transmitted from the first processor to the second processor within the mobile device.

13. The method of claim 12 further comprising:

initializing the first processor by assigning a media-access-controller MAC address to the first processor;

initializing the second processor by assigning a second MAC address to the second processor, the second MAC address being added to the first packet header as a physical destination address.

14. The method of claim 13 further comprising:

adding a physical-network header to the first packet header, the physical-network header comprising the physical destination address.

15. The method of claim 12 wherein the mobile device is a mobile telephone, and wherein the first processor is a base-band processor and the second processor is a applications processor.

16. The method of claim 12 wherein a physical network between the first processor and the second processor is emulated although a physical network does not exist between the first and second processors.

17. An applications processor for communicating with a base-band processor comprising:

processing means for executing high-level programs using an operating system;

network stack means, executing in response to the operating system, for encapsulating data from the high-level programs with a packet header;

shared memory means for storing data as network packets;

inter-processor interface means, coupled between the shared memory means and the base-band processor, for allowing the base-band processor to read and write packets to the shared memory means;

shared mailbox means, coupled to the inter-processor interface means and to the processing means, for generating a first interrupt in response to the base-band processor writing to a first location in the shared mailbox means;

output means, coupled to the processing means, for driving an interrupt signal onto an output line to the base-band processor;

physical-layer receive means, executing on the processing means, for reading a network packet from the shared memory means in response to the first interrupt, the physical-layer receive means passing the network packet to the network stack means, the network stack means removing the packet header and sending packet data to one of the high-level programs; and

physical-layer transmit means, executing on the processing means, for writing the network packet to the shared memory means, the physical-layer receive means receiving the network packet with the packet header from the network stack means;

wherein the physical-layer transmit means is also for causing generation of the interrupt signal from the output means to the output line after the network packet is written to the shared memory means,

whereby network packets with packet headers are sent between processors using the shared memory means.

18. The applications processor of claim 17 wherein the network stack means comprises an Internet Protocol IP layer that adds an IP header to the network packet, the IP header including a destination IP address for the baseband processor and a source IP address for the applications processor.

19. The applications processor of claim 18 wherein the network stack means further comprises a Transport-Control-Protocol TCP layer or a User Datagram Protocol UDP layer.

20. The applications processor of claim 18 wherein the physical-layer transmit means and the physical-layer receive means are further for emulating a physical layer of an internal IP network,

wherein the internal IP network has an emulated physical layer rather than a physical transmission media.

21. The applications processor of claim 20 wherein the internal IP network is a two-endpoint network coupled between the applications processor and the base-band processor,

whereby the internal IP network has only two network nodes.

22. The applications processor of claim 21 wherein the applications processor and the base-band processor are within a mobile telephone;

wherein the internal IP network is internal to the mobile telephone.