Context switching for on-the-fly processing of fragmented frames
First Claim
1. A method for processing data items comprising:
- determining whether a received data item is a complete data item or a portion of a complete data item;
accessing, when the received data item is determined to be a portion of the complete data item, state information relating to processing of the received data item, the state information being stored in a memory that is indexed based on source identification information that defines a sending device of the received data item, the source identification information including a service ID (SID) that uniquely defines a cable modem; and
analyzing the received data item based on the state information to determine whether the data item contains errors.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A frame analyzer component and a memory management unit process frames received over cable television lines. The frame analyzer component may receive frames that were transmitted over the cable television lines and that were processed by a digital signal processor. The frame analyzer component checks incoming frames or frame fragments for consistency and errors. Results from the frame analyzer component relative to frame fragments may be stored in a context memory. When a later fragment of the frame arrives, the previous context of the frame can be restored and used to continue processing the frame. The memory management unit stores the frames and frame fragments in separate memory management tables.
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Citations
26 Claims
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1. A method for processing data items comprising:
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determining whether a received data item is a complete data item or a portion of a complete data item; accessing, when the received data item is determined to be a portion of the complete data item, state information relating to processing of the received data item, the state information being stored in a memory that is indexed based on source identification information that defines a sending device of the received data item, the source identification information including a service ID (SID) that uniquely defines a cable modem; and analyzing the received data item based on the state information to determine whether the data item contains errors. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A system comprising:
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a digital signal processing component configured to receive analog data and convert the analog data to digital data items, at least one of the data items being output by the digital signal processing component as fragments of a complete data item; an analyzer component configured to receive the data items from the digital signal processing component and perform validation processing on the data items as the data items are received from the digital signal processing component, the analyzer component, when processing those of the data items that are received as fragments, retrieving previously stored information that describes a state of the analyzer component when the analyzer component finished processing a previous fragment of the data item and resuming processing of the data item at the described state; a memory management unit coupled to the analyzer component and configured to receive the data items and the fragments from the analyzer component and to store the data items in buffers, the memory management unit further including a first table in which references to non-fragmented data items are stored, and a second table in which references to the fragments are stored as entries that are indexed based on sources of the fragments. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method for processing data items received over a communication line, the method comprising:
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storing a received one of the data items in a memory buffer; determining if the received one of the data items is a complete data frame or a fragment of a data frame; updating an entry in a first table to reference the memory buffer when the data item is a complete data frame; updating an entry in a second table to reference the memory buffer when the data item is a fragment of the data frame; and transferring, when a last fragment of the data frame has been stored in the memory buffer, the entry in the second table to the first table. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A memory management device comprising:
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a first table configured to store a plurality of entries that reference first buffers in a memory, the entries in the first table corresponding to complete data frames stored in the first buffers; and a second table configured to store a plurality of entries that reference second buffers in the memory, the entries in the second table corresponding to fragments of data frames stored in the second buffers, the second table entries being addressable based on a transmitting source of the fragments of the data frames. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification