Schedule and data caching for wireless tranmission

• US 20090089459A1
• Filed: 09/29/2007
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Hiremath, Induharwamy, Jeyaseelan, Jaya L.
• Granted Patent: US 7,844,760 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/128 for dedicated transfers to a network for protocol converters G06F13/387
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/90 Buffering arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/901 using storage descriptor, e.g. read or write pointers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0216 using a pre-established activity schedule, e.g. traffic indication frame
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/12 Wireless traffic scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/182 Network node acting on behalf of an other network entity, e.g. proxy
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A method and apparatus for schedule and data caching for wireless transmissions. An embodiment of a method may include generating a schedule of queues for a wireless controller, the schedule being generated at a driver on a host system. In some embodiments schedule data may be cached at the wireless controller from the host system, where the cache may include active queues and page list entries for the active queues. The wireless controller may be operated using the cached queues.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

generating a schedule of queues for a wireless controller, the schedule being generated at a driver on a host system;

caching schedule data at the wireless controller from the host system, wherein the cache includes;

active queues, and

page list entries for the active queues; and

operating the wireless controller based on the cached queues.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless controller is a wireless USB controller.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein each queue comprises a queue set (QSet) for a transaction.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a change in the active queues, and rebuilding the cached schedule based on the received changes.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein a change in the active queues includes adding a scheduled queue, deleting a scheduled queue, or changing the activity status of a queue.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising transitioning the host system to a low power state while the wireless controller operates based on the cached queues.

7. A wireless controller comprising:

a memory to hold a cache, the cache to hold active queues and page list entries for the active queues, the cached data to be received from or transmitted to a host platform, the wireless controller to generate a transaction group based on the transfer descriptors in the active queues; and

data queues for transmission and reception of data according to the active queues;

wherein the wireless controller is to generate wireless transactions according to the transfer descriptors of the active queues.

8. The wireless controller of claim 7, wherein the wireless controller is a wireless USB controller.

9. The wireless controller of claim 8, wherein each queue comprises a queue set (QSet) for a transaction.

10. The wireless controller of claim 7, wherein the wireless controller is to receive updates from the host platform regarding active queues.

11. The wireless controller of claim 10, wherein the wireless controller is to rebuild the cache upon receiving notice from the host platform regarding a change in the active queues.

12. The wireless controller of claim 7, wherein the wireless controller is to consolidate accesses to host memory.

13. The wireless controller of claim 12, wherein for transmit operation the wireless host controller is to fetch as much data from the host platform as can be fit in one or more transmit data buffers for the wireless controller.

14. The wireless controller of claim 12, wherein for receive operation the wireless host controller is to hold data until a receive queue threshold or a timeout is reached and then write the data to host memory

15. A system comprising:

a bus;

a host system coupled to the bus, the host system including SDRAM memory to hold a wireless controller driver, the wireless controller driver to generate an asynchronous schedule of queues; and

a USB (Universal Serial Bus) wireless controller, the USB wireless controller including a cache, the cache to hold active queues from the schedule of queues and page entries for the active queues, wherein the USB wireless controller is to generate a transaction group based on the transfer descriptors in the active queues.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the host system is to inform the USB wireless controller regarding a change in the active queues.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the USB wireless controller is to flush the cache and rebuild the cached schedule based on the received changes.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the host system is to transition to a low power state during operation of the USB wireless controller between data transmit and data receive transfers.