Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.V.

Bruce Murray

George Samuel Fleming

Don Tolsch

Trevor Gr Hall

Authentication and key exchange functions, such as those conforming to the Digital Transmission Licensing Authority's (DTLA) Digital Transmission Content Protection (5C) Specification, are incorporated into a link-layer access device of a conventional processing system. Because of the suitability of IEEE 1394 for transferring audio/video information, these functions are preferably embodied in an IEEE 1394 compatible link-layer access device. The link-layer access device of this invention is configured to support, for example, the elliptic curve multiplication functions of a Diffie-Hellman key exchange process, as well as digital signature generation and digital signature verification. By incorporating the authentication and key exchange functions into a link-layer access device, the system architecture and devices that are commonly used in conventional processing systems can be used, thereby providing an incremental path toward increased protection of copyright material. In a preferred embodiment, the conventional link-layer controller is configured to implement the authentication and key exchange processes, via calls to the link-layer access device to perform the complex mathematical operations, thereby eliminating the need for each application-layer program or device to implement these processes.

IEEE 1394 link layer chip with '5C' authentication and key exchange accelerator

DVD data is read from an optical disc. Double buffering is used for outer error correction syndromes, the syndrome for one ECC frame being accumulated in one syndrome buffer, while error correction calculations for preceding data block are performed using a syndrome accumulated previously in another syndrome buffer). The syndrome buffers are used in alternating fashion as further blocks of data are received, while the flow of data to a main buffer is uninterrupted. This reduces buffering requirements in the decoder, and relaxes time constraints on the error correction calculations. A multi-beam implementation is disclosed, providing higher throughput.

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Hampshire, United Kingdom

Bruce Murray