Wireless device having a distinct hardware accelerator to support data compression protocols dedicated to GSM (V.42)

• US 7,480,489 B2
• Filed: 11/22/2004
• Issued: 01/20/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP PTE Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Eslick, Ian, Chu, Mike (Hon Fai)
• Primary Examiner(s): Vuong; Quochien B
• Application Number:
  US10/994,618
• Publication Number:
  US 20060123308A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,520 Days
• Field of Search: 455/72, 455/70, 455/333, 455/412.1, 455/466, 455/563
• US Class Current: 455/72
• CPC Class Codes: H03M 7/30 Compression speech analysis-synthesis for redundancy reduction G10L19/00; for image communication H04N; Expansion; Suppression of unnecessary data, e.g. redundancy reduction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0041 Arrangements at the transmitter end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0061 Error detection codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0072 Error control for data other than payload data, e.g. control data

Abstract

A processor within a wireless terminal performs data compression, decompression and error correction according to a data compression protocol such as the V.42bis data compression protocol used within GSM wireless networks. This processor includes an interface that receives incoming information or data to be compressed or decompressed according to the data compression protocol. A processing module within the processor is operably coupled to the interface to receive and process the incoming information. Instructions executed within the processing module will divide the processing responsibilities between the processing module and a data compression/decompression accelerator operably coupled to the processing module. Compute intensive operations may be offloaded from the processing module onto the data compression/decompression accelerator to improve overall system efficiency.

Claims

1. A processor within a wireless terminal operable to perform data compression and decompression according to a data compression protocol, comprising:

an interface that receives incoming information to be compressed or decompressed according to the data compression protocol;

a processing module operably coupled to the interface;

a data compression/decompression accelerator module operably coupled to the processing module, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module includes state machines using a microcoded engine that is reprogrammable by reprogramming an instruction memory associated with the data compression/decompression accelerator module; and

shared memory operably coupled to the processing module and to the data compression/decompression accelerator module, wherein;

the processing module is to store the information in the shared memory for retrieval by the data compression/decompression accelerator module and the processing module to generate an instruction to the data compression/decompression accelerator module that includes a pointer to point to the stored information, the instruction to identify a process to be performed to the stored information, and the instruction further includes multiple conditional branch targets and a fall-through target for the performed process;

the processing module and the data compression/decompression accelerator module are contained within a single Integrated Circuit (IC); and

processing of the information to be compressed or decompressed according to the data compression protocol is performed by the data compression/decompression accelerator module as directed by the processing module and processed information is subsequently returned to the shared memory for retrieval by the processing module.

2. The processor of claim 1, wherein the data compression protocol comprises V.42bis Data Compression.

3. The processor of claim 2, wherein V.42bis Data Compression supports voice information.

4. The processor of claim 1, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module performs compute intensive operations.

5. The processor of claim 1, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module, when encoding and decoding information uses a dictionary size and string length.

6. The processor of claim 5, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module performs a Lempel, Ziv, and Welch (LZW) algorithm that substitutes a dictionary index for the phrase.

7. The processor of claim 1, wherein a mode of operation of the data compression/decompression accelerator module is directed by a control interface operably coupled to the data compression/decompression accelerator module.

8. The processor of claim 7, wherein the mode of operation comprises either a decode mode or an encode mode.

9. The processor of claim 7, wherein the control interface comprises:

a configuration register operably coupled to the processing module, wherein a state of the configuration register defines the mode of operation of the data compression/decompression accelerator module;

a buffer setup register; and

a buffer access register.

10. The processor of claim 9, wherein states of the buffer setup register define an address and format of data received by and outputted from the data compression/decompression accelerator module.

11. The processor of claim 10, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module writes/reads data to/from the buffer access register.

12. The processor of claim 1, wherein the wireless terminal operates according to the GSM standard.

13. A wireless terminal that comprises:

a Radio Frequency (RF) front end;

a baseband processor communicatively coupled to the RF front end that receives incoming information to be compressed or decompressed according to a data compression protocol;

a shared memory coupled to the baseband processor to store the information; and

a data compression/decompression accelerator module operably coupled to the baseband processor and the shared memory to perform compression or decompression operation on the stored information according to the data compression protocol, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module includes state machines using a microcoded engine that is reprogrammable by reprogramming an instruction memory associated with the data compression/decompression accelerator module, in which the baseband processor generates an instruction to the data compression/decompression accelerator module, wherein the instruction includes a pointer to be passed to the data compression/decompression accelerator module to point to the stored information, the instruction to identify a process to be performed to the stored information, and the instruction further includes multiple conditional branch targets and a fall-through target for the performed process, wherein upon completion of the compression or decompression operation, the data compression/decompression accelerator module returns compressed or decompressed information back to the shared memory for retrieval by the baseband processor.

14. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein the data compression protocol comprises V.42bis Data Compression.

15. The wireless terminal of claim 14, wherein V.42bis Data Compression supports voice information.

16. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module performs compute intensive operations.

17. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module, when encoding and decoding information uses a dictionary size and string length.

18. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module performs a Lempel, Ziv, and Welch (LZW) algorithm that substitutes a dictionary index for the phrase.

19. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein a mode of operation of the data compression/decompression accelerator module is directed by a control interface operably coupled to the data compression/decompression accelerator module.

20. The wireless terminal of claim 19, wherein the mode of operation comprises either a decode mode or an encode mode.

21. The wireless terminal of claim 19, wherein the baseband processor includes a control interface that comprises:

a configuration register operably coupled to the processing module, wherein a state of the configuration register defines the mode of operation of the data compression/decompression accelerator module;

a buffer setup register; and

a buffer access register.

22. The wireless terminal of claim 21, wherein states of the buffer setup register define an address and format of data received by and outputted from the data compression/decompression accelerator module.

23. The wireless terminal of claim 22, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module writes/reads data to/from the buffer access register.

24. The wireless terminal of claim 13, wherein the wireless terminal operates according to the GSM standard.

25. A method to process information within a wireless terminal comprising:

receiving information at a processing engine;

determining if a compression or decompression operation is needed in the processing engine;

storing the information in a shared memory if compression or decompression operation is needed for retrieval of the information by a data compression/decompression accelerator module;

generating an instruction to the data compression/decompression accelerator module from the processing engine, in which the instruction includes a pointer to point to the stored information, the instruction to identify a process to be performed to the stored information, and the instruction further includes multiple conditional branch targets and a fall-through target to perform the process;

performing the compression or decompression operation in the data compression/decompression accelerator module that includes state machines using a microcoded engine that is reprogrammable by reprogramming an instruction memory associated with the data compression/decompression accelerator module;

storing the compressed or decompressed information in the shared memory; and

retrieving the stored compressed or decompressed information by the processing engine.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module performs compute intensive operations.

27. The method of claim 25, wherein the data compression/decompression accelerator module performs a Lempel, Ziv, and Welch (LZW) algorithm that substitutes a dictionary index for the phrase.

28. The method of claim 25, wherein a mode of operation of the data compression/decompression accelerator module is directed by a control interface operably coupled to the data compression/decompression accelerator module.

29. The method of claim 28, wherein the mode of operation comprises either a decode mode or an encode mode.

30. The method of claim 28, wherein the control interface comprises:

a configuration register operably coupled to the processing module, wherein a state of the configuration register defines the mode of operation of the data compression/decompression accelerator module;

a buffer setup register; and

a buffer access register.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein:

states of the buffer setup register define an address and format of data received by and outputted from the data compression/decompression accelerator module, and

the data compression/decompression accelerator module writes/reads data to/from the buffer access register.

32. The method of claim 25, wherein the wireless terminal operates according to the GSM standard.