Patent ID: 6963613

Claim:
A decoding system comprising: a core decoder processor adapted to perform decoding functions on a coded data stream and adapted to issue commands to an entropy decoding accelerator; and an entropy decoding accelerator adapted to receive commands from the core decoder processor and to perform entropy decoding operations on entropy-coded code in the data stream in response to said commands, wherein the entropy decoding accelerator is adapted to provide a command status signal to the core decoder processor, the command status signal indicating whether or not a command is completed; wherein the core decoder processor is adapted to issue a register-read instruction to the entropy decoding accelerator that causes the contents of a register in the entropy decoding accelerator to be provided to the core decoder processor, wherein if the command status signal indicates that a previous command is not yet completed when a register-read instruction is issued by the core decoder processor, the contents of the register in the entropy decoder are not provided to the core decoder processor until the command status signal indicates that the previous command is completed.