Electronic stream processing circuit with locally controlled parameter updates, and method of designing such a circuit

Abstract

An electronic circuit, in particular a receiver circuit contains a chain of stream processing circuits (-). The stream processing circuits (-) have control parameter inputs for receiving control parameter values. In order to facilitate design of circuits that receive data with a variable block size, a control circuit () is included that selects block sizes of blocks of samples in the respective streams of a plurality of the stream processing circuits (-), a control parameter value for each particular block. The control circuit transmits instructions that specify the selected block sizes and control parameter values to local control circuits (). Each local control circuit is coupled to the control circuit () and the control input of a respective corresponding stream processing circuit (-) from the chain. Each particular local control circuit () is arranged to receive at least part of the instructions and to apply parameter values from the instructions to its corresponding stream processing circuit (-). The particular local control circuit () controls timing of control parameter updates using block sizes from the instructions by counting off block size dependent time intervals between times points of successive control parameter updates. As a result there is no need to adapt the design of the stream processing circuits (-) to the block sizes.