Texas Instruments Corporation

Ian J Sherlock

Richard D Simpson

Michael D Asal

A display buffer includes a plurality of memory banks, each said bank having a plurality of ordered rows of data storage locations. Circuitry controls the storage of a plurality of sequenced lines of display data in said display buffer. A first set of lines of display data is stored at contiguous locations in a first memory bank with the first word of a first line being stored in a location offset from the first location of the first row so a last word of a last line is stored in the last location of the last row. A second set of lines is stored at contiguous locations starting at the first row of the second memory bank. A last line of the second set of lines is stored so that the last word of this last line is stored in the last location of a selected row of the second bank. A third set of lines is stored in a third memory bank starting at a memory line other than the first memory line. If additional space is needed, the display lines wrap around to the first location of the first line of the third bank of memories. A graphics processor may provide the memory addressing and bank selection logic.

Display buffer using minimum number of VRAMs

A circuit controls the reordering of data as it is transferred to control a memory. The data to be reordered is presented such that the ordinate bit position within a data word is uniquely associated with a particular input to a data bus. The bus inputs, however, are connected to the VRAM in an arrangement contrary to the desired ordinate association with the compressed data word. A single swizzle logic circuit operates to allow graphic compressed data to be reordered for presentation to the block-write inputs of a VRAM regardless of the VRAM or pixel size. The circuit relies upon properly expanding the compressed data prior to the actual reordering of the ordinate positions of the data bits. A method for controlling the reordering of data also is described.

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Bedford, United Kingdom

Ian J Sherlock