Patent Application
20080267100
1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to wireless communication systems; and more particularly to the servicing of high rate data communications by a wireless device.
2. Related Art
Cellular wireless communication systems support wireless communication services in many populated areas of the world. Cellular wireless communication systems include a “network infrastructure” that wirelessly communicates with wireless terminals within a respective service coverage area. The network infrastructure typically includes a plurality of base stations dispersed throughout the service coverage area, each of which supports wireless communications within a respective cell (or set of sectors). The base stations couple to base station controllers (BSCs) or equivalent devices, with each BSC serving a plurality of base stations. Each BSC couples to a mobile switching center (MSC) or equivalent device and also typically directly or indirectly couples to one or more data networks including the Internet.
In operation, each base station communicates with a plurality of wireless terminals operating in its serviced cell/sectors. A BSC coupled to the base station routes communications between the MSC and the serving base station. The MSC routes the voice communication to another MSC or to the PSTN. BSCs route data communications between a servicing base station and a coupled packet data network, which may be the Internet. Transmissions from base stations to wireless terminals are referred to as “forward link” transmissions while transmissions from wireless terminals to base stations are referred to as “reverse link” transmissions. The volume of data transmitted on the forward link typically exceeds the volume of data transmitted on the reverse link. Such is the case because data users typically issue commands to request data from data sources, e.g., web servers, and the web servers provide the data to the wireless terminals.
Wireless links between base stations and their serviced wireless terminals typically operate according to one (or more) of a plurality of wireless interface operating standards. These operating standards define the manner in which the wireless links are allocated, setup, serviced, and torn down. Cellular standards include the Global System for Mobile telecommunications (GSM) standards, the North American Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) standards, the North American Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) standards, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards, namely the Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services (UMTS)/Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) standards, the 1xRTT standards, the 1xEV-DO standards, and the 1xEV-DV standards, and among others.
Some of these operating standards, e.g., the High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) standards, the High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) standards, the 1xEV-DO standards, and the 1xEV-DV standards, for example, support high rate data communications. Such high rate data communications are of great benefits to both the users of data terminals supported by the systems and the operators that charge relatively large user fees for such data services. However, servicing such high rate data communications is problematic from a processing perspective. The HSDPA standards, for example, support a 7.2 Mbps downlink. Receipt of this downlink requires continuous processing by some components of a receiving wireless device and nearly continuous processing by other components of the receiving wireless device, which may be a wireless terminal or a base station. Thus, during this downlink, processing components of the receiving wireless device may be unable to service other necessary processes, such as user interface processes, data manipulation, and other required processes. These operational concerns are also present in high speed Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) that operate according to IEEE 802.11x standards for example, Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs) that operate according to the WiMAX standards for example, Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) that operate according to the IEEE 802.15 standards for example, and other types of wireless networks that support high rate data transfers. These problems exist in both wireless client devices, e.g., hand-held wireless terminals, wirelessly enabled computers, etc., and wireless infrastructure devices, e.g., base stations, access points, etc.
Thus, a need exists for improved methodologies for concurrently servicing high data rate transfers while supporting other processing requirements of the wireless device.
The present invention is directed to apparatus and methods of operation that are further described in the following Brief Description of the Drawings, the Detailed Description of the Invention, and the claims. Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention made with reference to the accompanying drawings.
Each of a plurality of service areas (cells/sectors/coverage areas) 7 and 9 is serviced by a base station and/or access point 17, 19 that supports wireless communications with a plurality of wireless devices 21-23, 25-31. In supporting cellular communications, each of the base stations 17 and 19 supports one or more cellular standards that may include the Global System for Mobile telecommunications (GSM) standards, the North American Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) standards, the North American Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) standards, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standards, the 1xRTT standards, the 1xEV-DO standards, the 1xEV-DV standards, and the Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services (UMTS)/Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) standards, among others. These supported standards may further include the High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) standards, the High Speed Uplink Packet Access standards, the 1xEV-DO standards, and the 1xEV-DV standards, for example, that specifically support high rate data communications.
In supporting other types of wireless systems, e.g., WLAN systems, WWAN systems, access points 7 and 9 support a WLAN standard such as one or more of the IEEE 802.11x standards, a WWAN standard such as WiMAX standard, or another wireless interface standard that supports high rate data transfers. Typically, base stations are used for cellular telephone systems and like-type systems, while access points are used for in-home or in-building wireless networks. Regardless of the particular type of communication system, each base station/access point 7 and 9 and wireless device 21-23 and 25-31 includes a built-in radio transceiver and/or is coupled to a radio transceiver to facilitate direct and/or in-direct wireless communications within the communication system 5. An IBSS 11 services a plurality of wireless devices 33-37 and operates according to a WLAN standard such as one or more of the IEEE 802.11s standards, a WPAN standard such as the Bluetooth standards or the IEEE 802.15 standards, or other wireless interface standards that support direct communication between wireless devices without an infrastructure base station/access point. Each of the wireless devices 21-37 may be laptop host computers 21 and 25, personal digital assistant hosts 23 and 29, personal computer hosts 31 and 33, and/or cellular telephone hosts 27 and 35.
The base stations/access points 17 and 19 are operably coupled to network hardware 15 via network connections 39 and 43. The network hardware 15, which may be a Base Station Controller (BSC), a Mobile Switching Station (MSC), a Radio Network Controller (RNC), router, switch, bridge, modem, system controller, et cetera, provides a network connection 41 for the communication system 5. Each of the base stations or access points 17, 19 has an associated antenna or antenna array to communicate with the wireless devices in its area. Typically, the wireless devices register with a particular base station or access point 17, 19 to receive services from the communication system 5. For direct connections (i.e., point-to-point communications) within IBSS 11, wireless devices 33-37 communicate directly via an allocated channel.
The principles of the present invention apply to each of the wireless devices 21-23, 25-29, and 33-37 as well as to each of the base stations/access points 17 and 19. Generally, the structure and operations of the present invention allow a wireless device to service a high speed data transfer while servicing its other processing requirements. The principles of the present invention will be described further with reference to particular embodiments of
The radio interface 210 allows data to be received from and sent to the radio 204. For data received from the radio 204 (e.g., inbound data), the radio interface 210 provides the data to the processing module 206 for further processing and/or routing to the output interface 214. The output interface 214 provides connectivity to an output display device such as a display, monitor, speakers, et cetera such that the received data may be displayed. The radio interface 210 also provides data from the processing module 206 to the radio 204. The processing module 206 may receive the outbound data from an input device such as a keyboard, keypad, microphone, et cetera via the input interface 212 or generate the data itself. For data received via the input interface 212, the processing module 206 may perform a corresponding host function on the data and/or route it to the radio 204 via the radio interface 210.
Radio 204 includes a host interface 220, baseband processing module 222 (baseband processor) 222, analog-to-digital converter 224, filtering/gain module 226, down conversion module 228, low noise amplifier 230, local oscillation module 232, memory 234, digital-to-analog converter 236, filtering/gain module 238, up-conversion module 240, power amplifier 242, RX filter module 264, TX filter module 258, TX/RX switch module 260, and antenna 248. Antenna 248 may be a single antenna that is shared by transmit and receive paths (half-duplex) or may include separate antennas for the transmit path and receive path (full-duplex). The antenna implementation will depend on the particular standard to which the wireless communication device is compliant.
The baseband processing module 222 includes one or more processing devices, some of which may be dedicated hardware components and some of which may be digital processors that execute operational instructions such as software instructions or firmware instructions. The baseband processing module 222 in combination with operational instructions stored in memory 234, execute digital receiver functions and digital transmitter functions. The digital receiver functions include, but are not limited to, digital intermediate frequency to baseband conversion, demodulation, constellation demapping, descrambling, and/or decoding. The digital transmitter functions include, but are not limited to, encoding, scrambling, constellation mapping, modulation, and/or digital baseband to IF conversion. Transmit and receive functions provided by the baseband processing module 222 may be implemented using shared processing devices and/or individual processing devices.
Processing devices, such as the baseband processing module 222, may include microprocessors, micro-controllers, digital signal processors, microcomputers, central processing units, field programmable gate arrays, programmable logic devices, state machines, logic circuitry, analog circuitry, digital circuitry, and/or any device that manipulates signals (analog and/or digital) based on operational instructions. The memory 234 may be a single memory device or a plurality of memory devices. Such a memory device may be a read-only memory, random access memory, volatile memory, non-volatile memory, static memory, dynamic memory, flash memory, and/or any device that stores digital information. Note that when the baseband processing module 222 implements one or more of its functions via a state machine, analog circuitry, digital circuitry, and/or logic circuitry, the memory storing the corresponding operational instructions is embedded with the circuitry comprising the state machine, analog circuitry, digital circuitry, and/or logic circuitry.
In operation, the radio 204 receives outbound data 250 from the host processing components via the host interface 220. The host interface 220 routes the outbound data 250 to the baseband processing module 222, which processes the outbound data 250 in accordance with a particular wireless communication standard (e.g., UMTS/WCDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA, 802.11x, WiMAX, 802.15, Bluetooth, et cetera) to produce digital transmission formatted data 252. The digital transmission formatted data 252 is a digital base-band signal or a digital low IF signal, where the low IF will be in the frequency range of zero to a few kilohertz/megahertz.
The digital-to-analog converter 236 converts the digital transmission formatted data 252 from the digital domain to the analog domain. The filtering/gain module 238 filters and/or adjusts the gain of the analog signal prior to providing it to the up-conversion module 240. The up-conversion module 240 directly or in a multi-step process converts the analog baseband or low IF signal into an RF signal based on a transmitter local oscillation 254 provided by local oscillation module 232. The power amplifier 242 amplifies the RF signal to produce outbound RF signal 256, which is filtered by the TX filter module 258. The TX/RX switch module 260 receives the amplified and filtered RF signal from the TX filter module 258 and provides the output RF signal 256 signal to the antenna 248, which transmits the outbound RF signal 256 to a targeted device such as a base station 103-106.
The radio 204 also receives an inbound RF signal 262, which was transmitted by a base station via the antenna 248, the TX/RX switch module 260, and the RX filter module 264. The low noise amplifier 230 receives inbound RF signal 262 and amplifies the inbound RF signal 262 to produce an amplified inbound RF signal. The low noise amplifier 230 provides the amplified inbound RF signal to the down conversion module 228, which converts the amplified inbound RF signal into an inbound low IF signal or baseband signal based on a receiver local oscillation 266 provided by local oscillation module 232. The down conversion module 228 provides the inbound low IF signal (or baseband signal) to the filtering/gain module 226, which filters and/or adjusts the gain of the signal before providing it to the analog to digital converter 224.
The analog-to-digital converter 224 converts the filtered inbound low IF signal (or baseband signal) from the analog domain to the digital domain to produce digital reception formatted data 268. The baseband processing module 222 demodulates, demaps, descrambles, and/or decodes the digital reception formatted data 268 to recapture inbound data 270 in accordance with the particular wireless communication standard being implemented by radio 204. The host interface 220 provides the recaptured inbound data 270 to the host processing components 202 via the radio interface 210.
As the reader will appreciate, all components of the radio 204, including the baseband processing module 222 and the RF front end components may be formed on a single integrated circuit. In another construct, the baseband processing module 222 and the RF front end components of the radio 204 may be formed on separate integrated circuits. The radio 204 may be formed on a single integrated circuit along with the host processing components 202. In still other embodiments, the baseband processing module 222 and the host processing components 202 may be formed on separate integrated circuits. Thus, all components of
According to one embodiment of the present invention, the protocol stack operations of protocol stack 302 are supported by multiple processing resources. Generally, first processing resources support a first portion of the protocol stack operations, while second processing resources support a second portion of the protocol stack operations. As is shown in
According to one particular embodiment of the present invention, the first processing resources support protocol stack operations through channel decoding operations while the second processing resources support protocol stack operations above channel decoding operations. However, in other embodiments, the split between first protocol stack operations second protocol stack operations may differ. Generally, the first processing resources are on-demand to servicing incoming communications while they arrive. Further, generally, the second processing resources support protocol stack operations that may be serviced other than in an always on-demand mode as well as other processing functions as well. Other processing functions supported by the second processing resources may include user interface functions, other data processing functions, video display functions, and audio display functions, among other processing functions that processing resources may support.
According to one aspect of the embodiment of
Referring now to
Thus, with the example of
In response to receipt of the service processing interrupt, the second processing resources retrieve the plurality (in some embodiments) of decoded data blocks from the data buffer and process 408 the plurality of decoded data blocks. The operations performed by the first processing resources include the first protocol stack operations previously described with reference to
Thus, with the embodiment of
Upon the production of a decoded data block, the first processing resources 504 write the decoded data block to data buffer 506. After one or more cycles of producing a decoded data block, when a processing resource threshold is met, the first processing resources issue a service processing interrupt to the second processing resources. The second processing resources 510 are operable to, in response to the service processing interrupt, retrieve the plurality of decoded data blocks from the data buffer and to process the plurality of decoded data blocks by servicing the second protocol stack operations. The second processing resources 510 are also operable to service the user interface 512. Servicing user interface 512 may include processing of audio data, processing of video data, and interacting with the user to receive information.
The second processing resources 510 are also operable to perform other functions of the wireless device 502, such as running applications programs such as address book applications, data processing programs, video display programs, music management and playing programs, camera programs, games, and other types of programs that wireless device 502 may support. By the first processing resources 504 not issuing a service processing interrupt at the production of each decoded data block, the second processing resources 510 are better able to service their other processing functions. In one particular example of the operation of wireless device 502, the processing resource threshold corresponds to a maximum number of decoded data blocks, e.g. 5 decoded data blocks. Thus, with this particular example, the first processing resources 504 produce five decoded data blocks before issuing an interrupt to the second processing resources 510. However, the particular number of produced decoded data blocks corresponding to the service processing interrupt may differ from 5. Further, the processing resource threshold may vary over time based upon other processing requirements of the second processing resources 510. For example, if the second processing resources 510 are not currently busy servicing other functions of the wireless device 502, the second processing resources 510 may process each decoded data block as it is produced by the first processing resources 504, e.g., processing resource threshold corresponds to one decoded data block. Then, at other times when the second processing resources 510 are busy, the processing resource threshold may be increased to correspond to a number of decoded data blocks greater than one, e.g., 4, and the second processing resources 510 are not interrupt until this differing threshold is met.
Referring now to
Referring now to
According to alternate construct/operation of embodiments of the present invention, the first processing resources could produce a service processing interrupt to the second processing resources upon the production of each decoded data block and circuitry could be employed to reside between the first processing resources and the second processing resources to buffer the interrupts and to decide whether the second processing resources should service such interrupts. In such case, the second processing resources would include the additional structure to buffer interrupts and to decide when to pass the buffered/accumulated interrupts to the second processing resources for servicing.
As one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate, the terms “operably coupled” and “communicatively coupled,” as may be used herein, include direct coupling and indirect coupling via another component, element, circuit, or module where, for indirect coupling, the intervening component, element, circuit, or module does not modify the information of a signal but may adjust its current level, voltage level, and/or power level. As one of ordinary skill in the art will also appreciate, inferred coupling (i.e., where one element is coupled to another element by inference) includes direct and indirect coupling between two elements in the same manner as “operably coupled” and “communicatively coupled.”
The present invention has also been described above with the aid of method steps illustrating the performance of specified functions and relationships thereof. The boundaries and sequence of these functional building blocks and method steps have been arbitrarily defined herein for convenience of description. Alternate boundaries and sequences can be defined so long as the specified functions and relationships are appropriately performed. Any such alternate boundaries or sequences are thus within the scope and spirit of the claimed invention.
The present invention has been described above with the aid of functional building blocks illustrating the performance of certain significant functions. The boundaries of these functional building blocks have been arbitrarily defined for convenience of description. Alternate boundaries could be defined as long as the certain significant functions are appropriately performed. Similarly, flow diagram blocks may also have been arbitrarily defined herein to illustrate certain significant functionality. To the extent used, the flow diagram block boundaries and sequence could have been defined otherwise and still perform the certain significant functionality. Such alternate definitions of both functional building blocks and flow diagram blocks and sequences are thus within the scope and spirit of the claimed invention.
One of average skill in the art will also recognize that the functional building blocks, and other illustrative blocks, modules and components herein, can be implemented as illustrated or by discrete components, application specific integrated circuits, processors executing appropriate software and the like or any combination thereof.
Moreover, although described in detail for purposes of clarity and understanding by way of the aforementioned embodiments, the present invention is not limited to such embodiments. It will be obvious to one of average skill in the art that various changes and modifications may be practiced within the spirit and scope of the invention, as limited only by the scope of the appended claims.
