System and method for communicating data utilizing multiple types of data connections

• US 20070291774A1
• Filed: 06/16/2006
• Published: 12/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Original Assignee: NVIDIA Corporation
• Inventors: Herz, William Samuel, Fear, Andrew C.
• Granted Patent: US 8,279,893 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/401
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/24 Multipath
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/36 by determining packet size, e.g. maximum transfer unit [MTU]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/14 Multichannel or multilink protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/18 Multiprotocol handlers, e.g. single devices capable of handling multiple protocols
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/02 Traffic management, e.g. flow control or congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/04 Registration at HLR or HSS [Home Subscriber Server]

Abstract

A system and method are provided for communicating data over a network. In some embodiments relating to data transmission, data is divided into a plurality of portions, such that the portions may be transmitted utilizing a plurality of different types of data connections. In other embodiments relating to data receipt, a plurality of portions of data is received utilizing a plurality of different types of data connections, after which the portions may be reassembled.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

dividing data into a plurality of portions; and

transmitting the portions of the data utilizing a plurality of different types of data connections.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the data connections include network data connections.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the data connections are selected from the group consisting of a home phoneline networking alliance (HPNA) data connection, a home plug data connection, a wireless fidelity (WiFi) data connection, a Bluetooth data connection, an Ethernet data connection, a 1394 data connection, a universal serial bus data connection, a parallel data connection, and an analog/digital data connection.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the dividing includes dividing the data into the portions based on contents of the data.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, and further comprising selecting one of the different types of data connections for transmitting each portion of the data.

6. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the selection is based on at least one aspect of the different types of data connections.

7. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein the selection is based on a bandwidth of the different types of data connections.

8. The method as recited in claim 6, wherein the selection is based on a latency of the different types of data connections.

9. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the selection is based on at least one aspect of the data or at least one of the portions thereof.

10. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the selection is based on a priority of the data or at least one of the portions thereof.

11. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the selection is based on a size of the data or at least one of the portions thereof.

12. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the selection is based on whether the data or at least one of the portions thereof is asynchronous or bisynchronous.

13. The method as recited in claim 9, wherein the selection is based on a content type associated with the data or at least one of the portions thereof.

14. The method as recited in claim 5, wherein the selection is based on at least one environmental factor.

15. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein a header is included with each of the portions of the data.

16. The method as recited in claim 15, wherein the header includes information selected from the group consisting of beginning and end data, transport data, error correction data, and contents identification information.

17. The method as recited in claim 1, and further comprising at least one of compressing, digitizing, and retrieving via direct memory access (DMA) the data or the portions thereof.

18. A method, comprising:

receiving a plurality portions of data utilizing a plurality of different types of data connections; and

reassembling the portions of the data.

19. A system, comprising:

a plurality of different types of data connections; and

an interface for interfacing the data connections to communicate a plurality of portions of data utilizing the different types of data connections.

20. The system as recited in claim 19, wherein the interface is provided utilizing a central processing unit and memory in communication via a bus.