Patent ID: 8886699

Claim:
A method of offloading signal processing within a server computer, the method executed by the server computer which comprises a processor, first storage associated with the processor, signal processing electronics, and second storage associated with the signal processing electronics, the processor in communication with the signal processing electronics over an internal communications bus within the server, the method comprising: receiving at the server computer a request over a communication network from a client computing device, the request associated with a signal; offloading signal from the server's processor to the server's signal processing electronics using the internal communications bus; storing the offloaded signal in the server's second storage; generating with the signal processing electronics a token unique to the offloaded signal; using the token instead of the offloaded signal during network protocol operations; receiving, by the processor and over the internal communications bus, the token from the signal processing electronics; storing the received token in the server's first storage; requesting, by the processor and during performance of a network protocol step, the signal processing electronics to process the offloaded signal by passing, across the internal communication bus to the signal processing electronics, the token stored in the first storage; associating, by the signal processing electronics, the passed token with its offloaded signal stored in the second storage; and processing the offloaded signal with the signal processing electronics.