Patent Abstract:
A process for initializing and booting the CPU of a wireless communication device includes a sequence controller, ROM, a ROM controller, a DMA controller, a wireless front end, a memory, and a remote wireless host which contains the download code. The sequence controller causes the ROM controller initially transfers a Source, a Destination and a Length to the DMA controller, which uses these values to copy the ROM contents into the memory. Thereafter, the sequence controller causes the CPU to start executing the code that has been transferred into memory by the ROM controller, and the CPU thereafter downloads the operating system into memory using the wireless front end, which is receiving an original and duplicate packet from the remote host. Upon completion of the download, the CPU executes the downloaded operating system and begins operation of the device.

Full Description:
[0001]    This application is a divisional application of Ser. No. 10/817,547 filed Apr. 2, 2004. This invention relates to an apparatus and a method for the transmission and reception of code for a wireless receiver, including a booting mechanism for a Central Processor Unit (CPU). 
     
    
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     Background of the Invention 
       [0002]    There are several mechanisms used for providing start-up instructions and data to a Central Processing Unit (CPU) in a dedicated standalone environment, commonly known as an embedded system. The initial startup of a CPU is known as the boot sequence. One mechanism for the boot sequence is the coupling of a non-volatile memory device such as flash memory to the CPU through a shared address/data bus. Once the CPU is booted and operating, existing networking protocols allows the processor to access and download files which may reside on a device which is attached to the network. One protocol for communicating through a network is the Internet Protocol (IP), as described in the standards of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF at www.ietf.org). The Internet Protocol is known as a layer 3 protocol on the ISO layer model, and provides for a connection oriented packet transport interface which includes mechanisms for detecting lost packets and requesting retransmission as well as managing timeouts and transmission retry requests. One such IP protocol for transmitting files over a network is the File Transfer Protocol (FTP), as described in RFC-959 found on www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc959.txt. A simpler file transfer protocol is the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) also known as RFC1350, described in www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1350.txt, whereby a network device is attached to a network and requests data using the TFTP protocol which includes verification of transmission of data in a form much simpler than FTP or IP, and TFTP shares the characteristics of acknowledging received data as well as many other error and timeout conditions. A mechanism for booting a device over a network is described in RFC951 (1985), commonly known as the bootstrap protocol, or BOOT-P, and is used for assigning a network address and booting a device from a network. Both of these protocols require the network device have a layer 3 (IP) address and be capable of layer 3 (IP) communications, including retransmission. It is desired for a wireless device to utilize wireless layer 2 (MAC) frames, and to operate without an IP address, and without the IP stack being present during the downloading of data from a host. It is further desired to transfer data using fixed length frames without retransmissions requests as used in layer 3 protocols. 
         [0003]      FIG. 1  shows a typical prior art embedded wireless system  10 , which includes a CPU  12 , static random access memory (SRAM)  14 , dynamic random access memory (DRAM)  16 , all sharing a high speed bus  28 ,  30 , and coupled to a bridge  22 . The bridge  22  couples access from the master devices such as the CPU  12  on the high speed bus  28 ,  30  to the long access time devices on the low speed bus  32 ,  34 . The low speed bus  32 , 34  devices include the bootrom  26 , wireless front end  18 , and any miscellaneous devices  24  such as real time clocks (not shown), and other devices which are not time-critical for operation of the CPU  12 . The high speed bus  28 ,  30  is generally lightly loaded to enable the highest operating speed of the CPU  12  to occur with frequently accessed devices sharing a high speed bus  28 ,  30 . Accesses to the slower devices on the low speed bus  32 ,  34  from the CPU  12  are performed through the bridge  22 . A typical embedded system has all of its operating software stored on the bootrom  26 , such that when the CPU  12  starts, it reads data directly from the bootrom  26 , and thereafter copies data and data structures from the bootrom  26  into the memories  14  and  16 . 
         [0004]    In a wireless portable device, the boot program executed by the CPU is typically stored in non-volatile memory such as flash memory bootrom  26 . The flash memory typically also contains the entire operating system contents, which is copied from slow flash memory  26  to the high speed SRAM  14  or DRAM  16 . Even a minimal operating system for a wireless device typically includes a bootloader which contains the CPU reset vectors, a kernel which provides basic operating system functionality and a scheduler which schedules the various threads and tasks. One such thread is typically a TCP stack, which provides the functionality of the IP (Internet Protocol) layer required by the WFE  18  which is only sending and receiving layer 2 MAC frames, and higher layer frames such as IP are handled by operating system software. In a portable wireless device  10 , the battery life is often governed in part by the size of such non-volatile memory devices. In addition, once the contents of the flash memory device  26  is read by the CPU  12 , the flash memory device  26  is no longer required. 
         [0005]    It is desired to reduce the size of the non-volatile flash memory device by providing minimal functionality to the CPU from local non-volatile memory  26 , and using the wireless front end  18  to download the operating system from a remote host. In this manner, a smaller non-volatile memory device  26  may be used, which reduces power dissipation and cost. The use of a smaller bootrom is possible because the bootloader is generally a smaller image than the operating system, which can be stored on a remote server. 
       OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION 
       [0006]    A first object of the invention is an apparatus for using a ROM controller and a ROM in conjunction with a bridge and a DMA controller to transfer data from a ROM to a static memory. 
         [0007]    A second object of the invention is an apparatus for using a ROM in conjunction with a DMA controller to transfer data from a ROM to a memory. 
         [0008]    A third object of the invention is an apparatus for using a memory in conjunction with a CPU and a wireless front end to transfer data from a wireless host to local memory. 
         [0009]    A fourth object of the invention is an apparatus for using a wireless host and a transfer protocol for sending data from a wireless host to a local memory. 
         [0010]    A fifth object of the invention is a process for loading an operating system with a first step of loading a SRC, DST, and LENGTH from a ROM to a static RAM, a second step of copying a ROM to a static RAM, and a third step of downloading an operating system from a host server. 
         [0011]    A sixth object of the invention is a process for transmitting an operating system to an image, said process including the steps of a client sending a download request, a server responding to said download request with an original and duplicate packet, each original and duplicate packet having a sequence number, and transmitting said original and duplicate packet with a sequence number until the download is complete, thereafter sending a “done” packet and a duplicate “done” packet to indicate completion of the download. 
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0012]    A wireless receiver  100  comprises a ROM  116  (Read Only Memory), a ROM Controller  114  coupled to the ROM  116  and also to the low speed bus  123  having an address  122  and data  124 , a bridge  110  coupling the low speed data bus  123  to a high speed bus  119  having an address  118  and data  120 , a DMA (Direct Memory Access) controller  126  coupled to the high speed data bus  119 , along with static memory  104 , dynamic memory  106 , and a Wireless Front End (WFE)  108  coupled to the low speed data bus  123 . The wireless front end  108  is coupled to a remote wireless host  128  which contains executable operating system code for use by the wireless receiver  100 . Upon power-up, the ROM controller  114  reads the three data values SRC (Source), DST (Destination), and LENGTH from the ROM  116  and translates these three values to the address of the SRC, DST, and LENGTH registers of the DMA controller  126 . The ROM Controller  114  resides on the low-speed bus  123 , and the DMA controller  126  resides on the high speed bus  119 . The Bridge  110  automatically couples and translates addresses and data from the low speed bus  123  to the high speed bus  119  to enable this transfer of data. Once the DMA controller  126  has these three values, it automatically begins a Direct Memory Access sequence, whereby it transfers a LENGTH number of bytes of data specified by the contents of the SRC address to the DST address. If the SRC address points to the ROM contents as accessed by the ROM controller, and the DST points to the memory such as SRAM  104 , the data is automatically copied from ROM  116  to SRAM  104 . The CPU  102  remains in an inactive reset state during this transfer. Once the CPU  102  is taken out of reset, it begins executing the code that was earlier copied from ROM  116  into memory  104 , which also contains the bootup sequence sufficient to begin the downloading of code from the wireless host  128 . The CPU  102  requests the balance of code to be downloaded from the wireless front end  108  which is coupled to a wireless host  128 , and it is copied into DRAM  106 . When the download is completed, the CPU has the operating system image required for full operation. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0013]      FIG. 1  shows the block diagram for a prior art wireless receiver. 
           [0014]      FIG. 2  shows the block diagram for a wireless receiver according to the present invention. 
           [0015]      FIGS. 3   a  and  3   b  show the transaction activity on the high speed bus and low speed bus for the wireless receiver boot sequence of  FIG. 2 . 
           [0016]      FIG. 4  is a flowchart for the client download process. 
           [0017]      FIG. 5  is a flowchart for the server download process. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0018]      FIG. 2  shows a wireless system  100 , which has a high speed bus  119  comprising an address bus  118  and a data bus  120 , as is known to one skilled in the art. There may also be a low speed bus  123  comprising an address bus  122  and a data bus  124 . A bridge  110  couples the high speed bus  119  to the low speed bus  123 , as is known to one skilled in the art of bridges. The busses are shown with separate address and data, as may be realized in one embodiment, although the busses could also be a single multiplexed address and data bus, such as PCI (www.pci.org), or SysAd bus of R7000 (www.pmc-sierra.com). When a device is controlling a bus through the issuance of read or write requests, it is referred to as a “bus master”. Bridge  110  is bi-directional, such that bus masters may be located on the low speed bus  123  or the high speed bus  119  with contents  200  and  202 , respectively, shown in  FIGS. 3   a  and  3   b . On the low speed bus  123 , devices which may act as bus masters are ROM controller  114 , bridge  110 , and wireless front end  108 . On the high speed bus  119 , devices which may act as bus masters are the CPU  102  and DMA controller  126 . The bridge  110  may translate addresses and data from the high speed bus  119  to the low speed bus  123 , or it may preserve them, as one skilled in the prior art of big-endian and little-endian data translations, or data bus width adaptations is aware. In the present invention, bridge  110  requires no initialization, and performs the bridging bi-directionally upon power-up. A sequence controller  130  responds to a power-on signal  131 , or any signal which indicates the boot sequence is to begin. The sequence controller  130  thereafter generates a ROM controller enable  132 , which starts a first sequence of events, and generates a CPU EN signal  134  at a later time. 
         [0019]    In the first part of the download sequence, upon assertion of ROM controller enable  132 , the ROM controller  114  becomes bus master, and reads three values SRC, DST, LENGTH from the ROM  116 , and places these values on the low speed bus  123  with the address corresponding to the address of the SRC, DST, and LENGTH registers of the DMA controller  126 . With these three cycles bus-mastered by the Rom Controller  114 , the DMA controller is initialized with the SRC address corresponding to the start location of program memory in ROM  116 , the DST address corresponding to a high speed memory such as SRAM  104 , and the LENGTH of the transfer, indicating how many bytes of data to transfer.  FIG. 3   a  shows this transaction with the ROM controller  114  as bus master on the low speed bus  123  sending the SRC, DST and LENGTH data to the DMA controller  126  registers DMA- 0 , DMA- 1 , and DMA- 2  during first sequence  204 . 
         [0020]    In the second part of the download sequence, the DMA controller  126  uses the SRC (DMA- 0 ), DST (DMA- 1 ), and LENGTH (DMA- 2 ) register values transferred from the earlier sequence to automatically transfer the balance of the data from ROM  116  to memory, shown as SRAM  104 , although it would also be possible to copy data to the DRAM  106  by changing the DST address from that of the SRAM  104  to a range occupied by DRAM  106 . This is shown in  FIG. 3   a  as sequence  206 , which transfers LENGTH bytes of data from the ROM to the SRAM  104 . Following the last transfer of data from ROM, the DMA controller  126  removes itself as bus master of the low speed bus  123  and high speed bus  119 . At some point thereafter, the sequence controller  130  asserts CPU enable  134 , which may be achieved by de-asserting a CPU reset line (not shown), as is typically done in the prior art of resetting the processor of  FIG. 1 . 
         [0021]    The third part of the download sequence begins upon assertion of CPU enable  134 , and the CPU  102  begins executing instruction cycles from the program data placed in SRAM  104  by the DMA controller  126  from the second sequence previously described. The third part of the sequence  208  is also shown in  FIG. 3   b , where the CPU boots, initializes, and starts downloading additional code for the entire operating system from a wireless host such as host  128  of  FIG. 2 . The download sequence uses the redundant transmission of data packets, which are reassembled into the complete code block transfer. 
         [0022]    The flowchart for the client download process  300  is shown in  FIG. 4 . The client download process starts  302  at step  304 , whereby the SRC, DST, and LENGTH are written from the ROM to the DMA controller by the ROM controller, and step  304  corresponds to first sequence  204  of  FIG. 3   a . The second step  306  of the download process is the copying of data from the ROM of length LENGTH to the SRAM which is addressed by the DST value written in the first step. The second step  306  corresponds to second sequence  206  of  FIG. 3   a . The third step of  FIG. 4  corresponding to the CPU download  208  of  FIG. 3   b  comprises the steps from  308  through  326  of  FIG. 4 . In step  308 , the CPU enable signal has been unasserted, and the CPU boots from the SRAM contents, which contains a minimum image required for booting and the download which occurs in the following steps. Once the CPU is booted and the wireless front end is initialized to send and receive wireless packets in step  308 , step  310  is performed where a download server is located and the client authenticates itself to the download server by presenting a MAC address, or any method of authentication which allows the download server to determine that a particular client should receive download code. Once the server location and client authentication step  310  is completed, the client sends a “download request” packet in step  312 . Each packet received from the wireless front end includes a sequentially increasing “TX_Seq_Num”, which is the sequence number of the packet sent by the download server and received by the client. Each download data packet comprises an original packet and a duplicate packet, where both packets contain the same sequence number Tx_Seq_Num. The redundant sending of identical packets reflects the unique wireless operating condition that each packet is a separate receive event, subject to unique channel bit error rate degradation of the communication channel. While two packets are shown, it is possible to transmit any number of redundant packets. For the case of two packets, if the rate of packet corruption or loss is 1/n, the sending of a redundant packet reduces the error rate to 1/n 2 . The client does not confirm receipt of packets, as is known to one skilled in the art of UDP packets. The client maintains a “RX_Seq_Num” value, which is incremented and compared to the TX_Seq_Num contained in the received original or duplicate packet. If the original packet is received, the duplicate packet is discarded. Step  314  shows the initialization of the receive packet sequence number Rx_Seq_Num. The Tx_Seq_Num contained in each received packet  316  is compared to the Rx_Seq_Num value to determine if it is a duplicate  318 , and discarded if so. If it is the first-received packet with the proper Rx_Seq_Num, the Rx_Seq_Num is incremented by one in step  320 , and if it is the second-received packet with the same Rx_Seq_Num, the duplicate packet is discarded in step  318 . If a gap in the Rx_Seq_Num of received packets is detected in step  322 , indicating that both an original and duplicate packet were both lost, the “image download request” packet is transmitted, starting the process over at step  312 . The final packet received from the host is the “done” packet, indicating completion of transmission  324  and end of the process  326 . If the packet is not a “done” packet, the process continues receiving code image packets in step  316 . 
         [0023]    The server download process is shown in  FIG. 5 . The process enters at step  500  and waits for a download request  502 , which is accompanied by a layer 2 MAC address, or any other authentication credentials which may be presented. These credentials are examined in step  504 , and upon authentication, the host determines the number of packets to be sent and initializes Num_Packets, which indicates the number of packets to be sent. The transmit sequence number Tx_Seq_Num is initialized in step  508 , and the transmission of packets starts in step  510 . The transmitter sequence number Tx_Seq_Num is included in an original packet  510 , as well as a duplicate packet  512  which is sent an interval of time later, after which the sequence number Tx_Seq_Num is incremented in step  514 . The first interval of time between the transmission of an original and duplicate packets may be varied from 1 us to 1 s, and the second interval of time from a duplicate packet to the following original packet may be less than the first interval. In this manner, other transmission activity on the shared wireless channel may occur without collision between senders, and the likelihood of packet loss is reduced. If a download request is received from the client in step  516 , this usually indicates a packet was lost during reception, and the entire download process is started again at step  506 . If the Tx_Seq_Num is equal to the Num_Packets in step  518 , this indicates that all of the packets have been transmitted, and the process is completed. The completion is made known to the client by sending a DONE packet in step  520 , and the process exits in step  522 . 
         [0024]      FIG. 5  shows a download process from a server whereby each data includes an original packet and a duplicate packet, and the transmitter continues until the last packet, which is a DONE packet, while the receiver examines each packet in sequence, until it reaches the DONE packet, and issues a new download request if it detects any missing packets. There are other ways of accomplishing the download involving original and duplicate packets. In another embodiment, the download comprises all original packets, each with an increment Tx_Seq_Num, followed by the DONE packet, followed by the duplicate packets, each with an increment Tx_Seq_Num, followed by the DONE packet. In this manner, the original and duplicate packets are transmitted, although in a non-interleaved manner, whereby the  FIG. 5  download interleaves the original packet and duplicate packet, each with the same Tx_Seq_Num and data, and the alternate embodiment sends all original packets and the done packet, followed by the duplicate packets and the done packet. In both schemes, the original and duplicate packets carry the same Tx_Seq_Num and data, but are sent in different sequences. 
         [0025]    The described processor operating system download process and apparatus may be realized in many different ways in accordance with the invention, and is not to be restricted to the specific embodiments shown as examples. As is known to one skilled in the art, address busses such as address bus  118  and address bus  122  of  FIG. 2  are used to uniquely select devices attached to the address bus, and within those devices responding to applied addresses, the address is further used to uniquely select register or memory locations within those devices. While the LENGTH field may be used to transfer a series of adjacent, or contiguous, data values, it is also possible to transfer any arrangement of contiguous, or non-contiguous values, such as described in the second part of the download process in  206  of  FIG. 3   a , or  306  of  FIG. 4 .

Technology Classification (CPC): 7