The field of the present invention is firmware for electronic devices.
Firmware refers to programming instructions that are embedded within an electronic device. For most electronic devices, including communication devices and PDAs, the firmware is stored in the device's memory. The electronic device enables reading and executing the programming instructions, but does not enable modification of the instructions. Unlike software, firmware cannot be modified by application programs. Instead, modification of firmware requires special external hardware. Examples of firmware include computer programs within a read-only memory (ROM) integrated circuit chip, and computer programs embedded within an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) chip.
Firmware in an electronic device needs to be updated from time to time. Updating firmware is done differently than updating software. Generally, software is updated by downloading newer software to a computer storage, and reading the newer software therefrom. In distinction, since electronic devices typically have only limited storage space, firmware updates are made by a manufacturer of the electronic device directly into the device's memory.
When updating firmware from a current version, say, version x, to a new version, say, version y, it is of advantage to generate a difference image, referred to herein as the “diff image” and denoted herein by x→y, representing the difference between version x and version y; and to send only the diff image file for updating the firmware from version x to version y. The electronic device activates an update utility that receives the diff image and updates the firmware with minimal computational and storage space requirements.
Reference is now made to
For many electronic devices, steps 11 and 12 are performed via over the air communication. A drawback with the use of over the air communication to request and receive the data for firmware update is the time and expense occurred. Use of a diff image minimizes the amount of data transported between the update server and the electronic device, thus saving time and expense—but nevertheless time and expense is occurred.
It would thus be of advantage to update firmware of electronic devices without requiring over the air communication between the electronic device and a remote update server.
Aspects of the present invention relate to updating firmware of an electronic device by attaching the device to a second device that serves as a jacket for the first device. The electronic device stores images of two versions of its firmware; namely, an image of a current version and an image of a baseline version. The current version of the firmware is used for operating the electronic device, and the baseline version is used for updating the firmware. The jacket has stored therein firmware diff image data that, when applied to the baseline image of the firmware stored in the electronic device, generates a new image of the firmware. By storing two versions of the firmware in the electronic device (current and baseline), only a single diff image is required to be stored in the jacket in order to update all older versions of the firmware. As a result, jacket storage space required for updating firmware is minimized.
The present invention is of advantage for updating firmware on a modular cell phone that may be housed within a jacket. When the cell phone is housed within a jacket, an enhanced cell phone/jacket combination device is thereby obtained, and also the firmware on the cell phone is updated. Over the air communication for updating the firmware is thus eliminated.
There is thus provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention a system for updating firmware on electronic devices, including an electronic device, including a processor, a storage coupled with the processor for storing a current image of firmware that includes programmed instructions for the processor and a baseline image of firmware, an update utility coupled with the processor for instructing the processor to update the firmware stored in the storage, and a connector coupled with the processor for connecting the electronic device to a jacket, thereby enabling communication between the electronic device and the jacket, and a jacket, including a storage for storing a firmware difference image for updating the firmware in the electronic device to a newer version, and a port for connecting the electronic device connector thereto, wherein the update utility instructs said electronic device processor (i) to apply the firmware difference image to the baseline image of the firmware to generate a newer version image of the firmware, and (ii) to replace the current image of the firmware in the electronic device storage with the thus generated newer version image of the firmware, in response to connecting the electronic device connector to said jacket port.
There is additionally provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention a method for updating firmware on electronic devices, including, in response to an electronic device being attached to a jacket, reading a data block from a baseline image of firmware stored on the electronic device, further reading a data block from a difference image of firmware stored on the jacket, combining the data block from the difference image to the data block from the baseline image to generate a data block for a new image of firmware, replacing a current image of firmware stored on the electronic device with the data block for the new image of firmware generated by said combining, and repeating the reading, the further reading, the combining and the replacing until all required data blocks for the new image of firmware are generated.
There is further provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention a system for updating firmware on electronic devices, including an electronic device, including a processor, a storage coupled with the processor for storing a current image of firmware that includes programmed instructions for the processor and a baseline image of firmware, an update utility coupled with the processor for instructing the processor to update the firmware stored in the storage, and a modem coupled with the processor for enabling short range wireless communication between the electronic device and a jacket, and a jacket, including a storage for storing a firmware difference image for updating the firmware in the electronic device to a newer version, and a modem coupled with the storage for enabling short range wireless communication between the jacket and the electronic device, wherein the update utility instructs the electronic device processor (i) to apply the firmware difference image to the baseline image of the firmware to generate a newer version image of the firmware, and (ii) to replace the current image of the firmware in the electronic device storage with the thus generated newer version image of the firmware, in response to opening a short range wireless communication channel between the electronic device and the jacket.
There is yet further provided in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention an electronic device with firmware upgrade capability, including a processor, a storage coupled with the processor for storing a current image of firmware that includes programmed instructions for the processor, and a baseline image of firmware, an update utility coupled with the processor for instructing the processor to update the firmware stored in the storage, and a network connection, for downloading a firmware difference image from an update server to the electronic device, wherein the update utility instructs the processor (i) to download the firmware difference image from the update server to the electronic device, (ii) to apply the downloaded firmware difference image to the baseline image of the firmware to generate a newer version image of the firmware, and (iii) to replace the current image of the firmware in the storage with the thus generated newer version image of the firmware.
The present invention will be more fully understood and appreciated from the following detailed description, taken in conjunction with the drawings in which:
Aspects of the present invention relate to updating firmware on an electronic device by attaching the device to a second device that serves as a jacket for the first device.
Although the present invention applies to a wide variety of electronic devices and jackets, for the sake of definitiveness, the ensuing description relates primarily to an embodiment of the present invention wherein the electronic device is a modular cell phone, and the second device is a jacket into which the modular cell phone is inserted. The jacket enhances the modular cell phone by providing an enhanced user interface therefor, and additional capabilities such as a media player. The modular cell phone enhances the jacket by providing wireless communication. The jacket may have standalone operation capability, in which case it is also referred to as a host. Alternatively, the jacket may only be able to operate in cooperation with the modular cell phone.
Reference is now made to
Reference is now made to
Reference is now made to
Connection controller 110 executes programmed instructions that control the data flow between modular cell phone 100 and jacket 200. Connection controller 110 includes a firmware update utility 111 that updates the version of the firmware stored in storage 115 from time to time. As explained below with reference to
Modular cell phone 100 includes an optional audio/video subsystem 130, which includes inter alia a voice, audio and video interface.
Modular cell phone 100 includes a connector 150, which includes a jacket connector 160 and an optional USB connector 155. Modular cell phone 100 optionally includes a SIM 190.
Modular cell phone 100 operates in standalone mode or in conjunction with a jacket, such as any of jackets 200a-200h shown in
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the interface between connection controller 110 and storage 115, and the interface between connection controller 110 and modem 120 are SD interfaces. The interface between connection controller 110 and jacket connector 160 is a customized connection interface.
Reference is now made to
Jacket 200 includes a jacket user interface 270 including an optional microphone 271, an optional earpiece 273, an optional mono speaker or optional stereo speakers 275, an optional vibrator 277, an optional keyboard 280 and an optional display 285. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that jacket user interface 270 may include additional components.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, the interface between connection controller 210 and storage 215 is an SD interface. The interface between connection controller 210 and cell phone 260 is a customized connection interface.
It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the connection between modular cell phone 100 and jacket 200 may be via a wired connection or a wireless connection.
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, jacket 200 is preloaded with the newest version of the firmware for modular cell phone 100, and the current firmware in modular cell phone 100 is updated via jacket 200, instead of via a network over the air.
In principle, if the current version, y, of the firmware is the (n+1)st version, then modular cell phone 100 may currently have any of the n previous versions of the firmware in its memory. Alternatively, modular cell phone 100 may already have the newest version in its memory. Thus it would appear that in order to accommodate all modular cell phones 100, jacket 200 needs to store either the entire image of firmware version y, or all of the diff images x→y for x=1, 2, . . . , n. In order not to have to store so much data in the limited storage space of jacket 200, a baseline version of the firmware, denoted by version 0, is stored in modular cell phone 100, in addition to the current version x that is stored therein. Consequently it suffices to store the single diff image 0→y in jacket 200. Since the baseline version is generally not the current firmware running in modular cell phone 100, the baseline version may be stored in a compressed format, in order to reduce the memory required of modular cell phone 100.
In this regard, reference is now made to
Otherwise, if version y is newer than version x, then at step 24 a data block of the baseline image of the firmware, version 0, is read from the memory of the electronic device. At step 25 the corresponding data block of the diff image 0→y is read, and applied to the baseline version 0, to generate the corresponding data block of firmware version y. At step 26 the data block of firmware version y is written to the memory of the electronic device. At step 27 a determination is made whether or not there are more data blocks to process. If so, then processing loops back to step 24 to process a next data block. Otherwise, if all data blocks have been processed, then processing continues at step 23.
As mentioned hereinabove, in some embodiments of the present invention the baseline image stored in the electronic device is compressed, in order to reduce memory requirements. Generally, the baseline image is compressed in sectors, and therefore may be decompressed in sectors, rather than all at once. In these embodiments, step 24 is modified to include reading a compressed data block of the baseline image of the firmware, version 0, from the memory of the electronic device, and decompressing the compressed data block. After step 25, the decompressed data block is deleted to free up memory. Thus memory required of the electronic device for storing the baseline image is minimized.
In an alternate embodiment of the present invention, if the electronic device has sufficient free memory to store the entire diff image 0→y, then the entire image may be copied to the electronic device and steps 24-26 may be performed on the full images without the need to loop over individual data blocks. Updating full firmware images at once accelerates the update process, but requires additional memory in the electronic device.
Reference is now made to
Specifically, at process step 24 update utility 111 reads a block of baseline image data from cell phone storage 115, and at process step 25 update utility 111 reads a corresponding block of diff image data from jacket storage 215. At process step 26, update utility 111 applies the diff image data to the baseline image data to generate a corresponding block of image data for the new firmware version y. Update utility 111 writes the output block over the corresponding block of data stored in storage 115 for current firmware version x. The process thus continues until all blocks for the image of firmware version y are generated.
In an alternate embodiment of the present invention, the output block may be written to a different storage location at step 26, instead of overwriting the corresponding block of firmware version x.
In distinction to the process shown in
In one embodiment of the present invention, storage 115 includes non-volatile memory, e.g., NOR memory, and modem 120 includes RAM memory. Alternatively, the RAM memory may be a separate chip in modular cell phone 100. The firmware is stored in the NOR memory, and is updated when modular cell phone 100 is rebooted. In order for modular cell phone 100 to determine during reboot whether or not to update its firmware, a flag is set in the cell phone's RAM to indicate whether or not a newer version of the firmware than current version x is available. The flag is set to TRUE when jacket 200 indicates that a newer version is available. The flag is stored in RAM since, otherwise, were it to be stored in NOR, then it may be overwritten during the firmware upgrade.
Subsequently, upon reboot from RAM, modular cell phone 100 performs the following logic:
In reading the above description, persons skilled in the art will realize that there are many apparent variations that can be applied to the methods and systems described. Thus it will be appreciated that the connection between modular cell phone 100 and jacket 200 may be any physical or wireless connection, and is not limited to an arrangement where jacket 200 is a casing for modular cell phone 100 as illustrated in
It will further be appreciated that jacket 200 may access another communication channel, such as an Internet connection, in addition to the limited communication channel accessible by modular cell phone 100. For example, jacket 200 may be a host device, including inter alia a personal computer; or jacket 200 may connect to a host device, such as a personal computer. When jacket 200 has access to the other communication channel, the required diff image 0→y may be downloaded to jacket 200 via such other channel. For example, the diff image 0→y may be downloaded to jacket 200 over the Internet.
It will further be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the logic of
In the foregoing specification, the invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments thereof. It will, however, be evident that various modifications and changes may be made to the specific exemplary embodiments without departing from the broader spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. Accordingly, the specification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative rather than a restrictive sense.
This application claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/123,314, entitled UPDATING FIRMWARE ON MOBILE ELECTRONIC DEVICES, filed on Apr. 7, 2008 by inventor Yaron Segalov.
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