Displaylink (UK) Limited

Eric Kenneth Hamaker

Colin Skinner

Jonathan Alexander Jeacocke

Robin Alexander Cawley

Douglas Morse

Richard Akester

Dan Ellis

A display device has a plurality of display panels () together forming a single display screen, where each display panel () is connected to a display controller () which receives display data of a portion of a complete image for display on the display panel (). The complete image (S) includes one or more bounded regions (S, S, S, S) of display data. Each display controller () also receives position information relating to a change in lateral position and/or stacking order position of one or more bounded regions that are to be displayed at least partly on that display panel (). If the display controller () determines that it does not have knowledge of display data in the bounded region (S, S, S, S) to be displayed on the display panel for which the position information was received, it obtains that knowledge from another display controller () that has such knowledge. The display controller () then processes the display data for the portion of the complete image utilising the knowledge obtained from another display controller (), and outputs the processed display data for the portion of the complete image to the corresponding display panel ().

Distributed video pipe

A heterogeneous multi-core integrated circuit comprising two or more processors, at least one of the processors being a general purpose CPU and at least one of the processors being a specialized hardware processing engine, the processors being connected by a processor local bus on the integrated circuit, wherein the general purpose CPU is configured to generate a first instruction for an atomic operation to be performed by a second processor, different from the general purpose CPU, the first instruction comprising an address of the second processor and a first command indicating a first action to be executed by the second processor, and transmit the first instruction to the second processor over the processor local bus. The first command may include the first action, or may be a descriptor of the first action or a pointer to where the first action may be found in a memory.

Single-chip multi-processor communication

A display device has display panels forming a single display screen, where each display panel is connected to a display controller which receives display data of a portion of a complete image for display on the display panel. The complete image includes one or more bounded regions of display data. Each display controller receives position information relating to a change in lateral position and/or stacking order position of one or more bounded regions to be displayed at least partly on that display panel. If the display controller does not have knowledge of display data in the bounded region to be displayed on the display panel, it obtains that knowledge from another display controller. The display controller processes the display data for the portion of the complete image utilizing the knowledge obtained, and outputs the processed display data for the portion of the complete image to the corresponding display panel.

A method for compositing display data at a remote device to form an image for display involves the remote device receiving (S) elements of the image, where the image includes display data forming a background layer, display elements forming a foreground layers and an overlay data layer. The remote device receives (S) sensor information indicating one or more of a position of an eye of a viewer, a direction of focus of the eye of the viewer, and/or a position of a display. It then determines (S) movement of a line of sight between the eye of the viewer and the display, determines an estimate of a future position of the line of sight at a future time based on the determined movement of the line of sight, and determines (S) an adjustment to be made to the image based on the future position of the line of sight. The display elements of the foreground layer are composited (S) relative to the display data of the background layer according to the determined adjustment and the composited image is forwarded (S) for display at the future time.

Compositing an image for display

A method of encoding display output of a computer using a block-based video encoder, such as H.264 includes receiving display update information, the display update information specifying at least one changed display area. Pixel data associated with the at least one changed area is also received. For each image block of an output frame to be encoded, the encoder determines whether the image block intersects one or more of the changed areas. A block skip indication is encoded for each image block not intersecting at least one changed area, and pixel data is encoded for intersecting blocks. An encoded output frame is then generated including the block skip indications and encoded pixel data.

Efficient encoding of display data

A method of managing display data involves maintaining caches () of most recently used tiles of display data at a host () and at a display control device (). The caches () are synchronised so that they contain the same data in the same locations. When the host () generates a tile that needs encoding and transmitting, it checks to see if that tile is already stored in the host cache (). If so, it sends a cache ID to the display control device (); otherwise, it encodes and sends the tile. When the display control device () receives data, it identifies it either as a cache ID or as an encoded tile. If it is a cache ID, the data is retrieved from the display control device cache () and sent for display (); otherwise, it decodes the tile and sends it for display (). Both caches () are updated so that the tile is indicated as the most recently accessed item in each cache ().

Managing display data

Display data of a first type for a first display device is fetched from a first portion of a first buffer memory and display data of a second type is fetched from a first portion of a second buffer memory at a first time according to an arbitration control signal and then combined into display data for the first display device. Display data of the first type for the second display device is fetched from a second portion of the first buffer memory and display data of the second type for the second display device is fetched from a second portion of the second buffer memory at a second time according to the arbitration control signal, and then combined into display data for the second display device, which is multiplexed with the combined display data for the first display device into a single display data stream and output.

Managing display data of different types for transmission to multiple devices

A display system for displaying images includes an image compositor which receives image tiles from different application engines independently from each other and combines them into one or more combined image tiles in which the received image tiles are combined according to information indicating how the received image tiles are to be combined and located in the final displayed image, and a monitor for displaying the final displayed image, wherein different portions of the monitor are refreshed at different refresh rates, as the combined image tiles are received from the image compositor.

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Eric Kenneth Hamaker