Other

Intel Corporation

Discovision Associates

Mindspeed Technologies, Inc.

Picochips Design Limited

Anthony Peter John Claydon

William P Robbins

Anne Patricia Claydon

Anthony Mark Jones

Adrian Philip Wise

Martin William Sotheran

Gajinder Singh Panesar

Helen Rosemary Finch

Kevin J Boyd

Andrew Duller

Simon Howell

Alex Orr

Michael Davison

There is described a processor architecture, comprising: a plurality of first bus pairs, each first bus pair including a respective first bus running in a first direction (for example, left to right) and a respective second bus running in a second direction opposite to the first direction (for example right to left); a plurality of second bus pairs, each second bus pair including a respective third bus running in a third direction (for example downwards) and a respective fourth bus running in a fourth direction opposite to the third direction (for example upwards), the third and fourth buses intersecting the first and second buses; a plurality of switch matrices, each switch matrix located at an intersection of a first and a second pair of buses; a plurality of elements arranged in an array, each element being arranged to receive data from a respective first or second bus, and transfer data to a respective first or second bus. The elements in the array include processing elements, for operating on received data, and memory elements, for storing received data. The described architecture has the advantage that it requires relatively little memory, and the memory requirements can be met by local memory elements in the array.

Processor architecture with switch matrices for transferring data along buses

A processor architecture includes a plurality of processing elements and a bus structure. Each element has at least one input port and at least one output port, each port having at least a data bus and a valid data signal line. The bus structure contains a plurality of switches arranged to connect an output port of any first processing element to the input port of any second processing element for a time interval. Each processing element sets a value on the valid data signal line of its output port to a first logic state when the associated data bus contains a transfer value and to a second logic state when it does not contain a transfer value. Each processing element enters a waiting state for a predetermined time interval when the value on the valid data signal line of the associated input port is in the second logic state.

Processor architecture

A processor architecture includes a plurality of elements arranged in an array of rows and columns and a plurality of first and second bus pairs with the first pair being located between different adjacent rows of the array and having first and second buses running in opposite directions and the second bus pair being located between different adjacent columns of the array and having third and fourth buses running in opposite directions and intersecting the first and second buses. A plurality of switch matrices located at an intersection of one of the first bus pairs and one of the second bus pairs includes inputs and outputs for first, second, third and fourth buses and switch elements for switchably connecting the inputs and outputs.

Data is transmitted from a sending processor over a network to one or more receiving processor in a forward direction during an allocated slot, and acknowledge signals are sent in a reverse direction during the same allocated slot, to indicate whether the receiving processor is able to receive data If one or more of the receiving processors indicates that it is unable to receive the data, the data is retransmitted during the next allocated slot. This means that the sending processor is able to determine within the slot period whether a retransmission is necessary, but that the slot period only needs to be long enough for one-way communication.

Communications in a processor array

An array of processing elements can incorporate a degree of redundancy. Specifically, the array includes one or more spare, or redundant, rows of array elements, in addition to the number required to implement the intended function or functions of the device. If a defect occurs in one of the processors in the device, then the entire row which includes that defective processor is not used, and is replaced by a spare row.

Processor array

A pipeline video decoder and decompression system handles a plurality of separately encoded bit streams arranged as a single serial bit stream of digital bits and having separately encoded pairs of control codes and corresponding data carried in the serial bit stream. The pipeline system employs a plurality of interconnected stages to decode and decompress the single bit stream, including a start code detector. When in a search mode, the start code detector searches for a specific start code corresponding to one of multiple compression standards. The start code detector responding to the single serial bit stream generates control tokens and data tokens. A respective one of the tokens includes a plurality of data words. Each data word has an extension bit which indicates a presence of additional words therein. The data words are thereby unlimited in number. A token decode circuit positioned in certain of the stages recognizes certain of the tokens as control tokens pertinent to that stage and passes unrecognized control tokens to a succeeding stage. A reconfigurable decode and parser processing means positioned in certain of the stages is responsive to a recognized control token and reconfigures a particular stage to handle an identified data token. Methods relating to the decoder and decompression system include processing steps relating thereto.

Multistandard video decoder and decompression system for processing encoded bit streams including a decoder with token generator and methods relating thereto

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Bath, United Kingdom

Anthony Peter John Claydon