Patents Assigned to Broadcom
  • Publication number: 20070263754
    Abstract: Hardware allocation techniques are described for use in a multi-channel communication environment. The techniques may be used to reduce the number of gates needed for processing and/or to improve the efficiency and/or speed of a communication system. For example, resources that are under-utilized may be removed or allocated to another operation or user. In an exemplary implementation, a receiver includes a plurality of signal processing modules corresponding to respective channels and a hardware allocation module. The hardware allocation module allocates resources in the signal processing modules based on utilization of at least one of the resources.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 14, 2007
    Publication date: November 15, 2007
    Applicant: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Bruce J. Currivan, Thomas J. Kolze, Loke K. Tan, Hanli Zou, Johnathan S. Min
  • Publication number: 20070263673
    Abstract: Digital signal processing based methods and systems for receiving data signals include parallel receivers, multi-channel receivers, timing recovery schemes, and, without limitation, equalization schemes. The present invention is implemented as a multi-path parallel receiver in which an analog-to-digital converter (“ADC”) and/or a digital signal processor (“DSP”) are implemented with parallel paths that operate at lower rates than the received data signal. In an embodiment, a parallel DSP-based receiver in accordance with the invention includes a separate timing recovery loop for each ADC path. In an embodiment, a parallel DSP-based receiver includes a separate automatic gain control (AGC) loop for each ADC path. In an embodiment, a parallel DSP-based receiver includes a separate offset compensation loop for each ADC path. In an embodiment, the present invention is implemented as a multi-channel receiver that receives a plurality of data signals.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 16, 2007
    Publication date: November 15, 2007
    Applicant: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Oscar Agazzi, Venugopal Gopinathan
  • Publication number: 20070263624
    Abstract: A wireless communication system and method is provided for the transfer and processing of data in accordance with specialized data transfer protocols while utilizing conventional base station equipment. For example, the wireless communication system may include a subscriber station that provides for the modification of data packets in accordance with a proprietary protocol and the addressing of the modified data packets to a server. The server is adapted to reconstruct the data packets for transmission to other local subscriber stations or to a packet-switched network. In additional embodiments, the base station itself rather than a server operates to reconstruct the data packets.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 20, 2007
    Publication date: November 15, 2007
    Applicant: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Fred Bunn, Tom Johnson
  • Patent number: 7295607
    Abstract: Provided is a method to process a pulse width coded signal. the method includes digitizing a received pulse width coded signal and transforming the digitized signal to at least one of power domain and absolute value domain. The converting produces a converted signal. The method also includes estimating a signal power of the converted signal in a wide band filter to produce data representative of a first signal having first type signal shape properties and estimating a signal power of the converted signal in a narrow band filter to produce data representative of a second signal having second type signal shape properties. Finally, the first and second type data are compared to produce information representative of pulse width characteristics of the received signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventor: Tommy Yu
  • Patent number: 7295555
    Abstract: Systems and methods that identify the Upper Layer Protocol (ULP) message boundaries are provided. In one example, a method that identifies ULP message boundaries is provided. The method may include one or more of the following steps: attaching a framing header of a frame to a data payload to form a packet, the framing header being placed immediately after the byte stream transport protocol header, the framing header comprising a length field comprising a length of a framing protocol data unit (PDU); and inserting a marker in the packet, the marker pointing backwards to the framing header and being inserted at a preset interval.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 29, 2002
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventor: Uri Elzur
  • Patent number: 7295397
    Abstract: A controller includes a combining module that generates a total control signal for the drive device of a disk drive by combining a feedback control signal and a feedforward control signal. A feedback control module generates the feedback control signal in response to at least one state of the drive device. A feedforward control module generates the feedforward control signal based on a smoothing function and a feedforward control function. The smoothing function is determined by evaluating a plurality of candidate smoothing functions by determining a smoothness factor associated with the control signal that results from each of the plurality of candidate smoothing functions, and selecting the smoothing function as one of the plurality of candidate smoothing functions, based on the smoothness factor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 30, 2006
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventor: Michael Chang
  • Patent number: 7295637
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for controlling an antenna array for wireless communication are described. The method uses the statistical characteristics of the received signal noise in controlling the antenna array in order to achieve directional reception in a wireless communication system and suppress co-channel interference. Furthermore, the method can be used to power space-division multiple access and can be used in conjunction with multi-carrier modulation signaling.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 4, 2002
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Apostolos Papathanasiou, Emmanuel Frantzeskakis, Aristidis Posonidis, Konstantinos Aretos
  • Patent number: 7296174
    Abstract: A gearbox is placed between two clock domains to allow data to be transferred from one domain to the other. Although the two domains may operate at the same clock frequency, typically one domain has a faster clock speed than the other. The gearbox is disposed between the two clock domains to control timing of data transfer from one to the other, by selecting a pattern which identifies when data is made transparent for the transfer. The gearbox allows a number of clock ratios to be selected, so that a particular clock ratio between the two domains may be readily selected in the gearbox for the data transfer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventor: James D. Kelly
  • Patent number: 7296295
    Abstract: Systems and methods that reformat media are described. In one embodiment, a system may include, for example, a server, a first communications device and a second communications device. The server, the first communications device and the second communications device may be operatively coupled to a network. The second communications device may receive, from the first communications device, a device profile relating to the first communications device and may send the device profile and media content to the server. The server may reformat the media content based on the device profile.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Marcus Kellerman, Jeyhan Karaoguz, James D. Bennett
  • Patent number: 7296216
    Abstract: Stopping or reducing oscillations in Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes. A novel solution is presented that completely eliminates and/or substantially reduces the oscillations that are oftentimes encountered with the various iterative decoding approaches that are employed to decode LDPC coded signals. This novel approach may be implemented in any one of the following three ways. One way involves combining the Sum-Product (SP) soft decision decoding approach with the Bit-Flip (BF) hard decision decoding approach in an intelligent manner that may adaptively select the number of iterations performed during the SP soft decoding process. The other two ways involve modification of the manner in which the SP soft decoding approach and the BF hard decision decoding approach are implemented. One modification involves changing the initialization of the SP soft decoding process, and another modification involves the updating procedure employed during the SP soft decoding approach process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 19, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Ba-Zhong Shen, Kelly Brian Cameron
  • Patent number: 7295250
    Abstract: A DC compensation circuit restores the frequency spectrum of an input signal at DC (or 0 Hz) by removing or reducing DC offset, 1/f noise, or any other unwanted noise at or near 0 Hz. The DC compensation is performed using direct coupling, as opposed to AC coupling, so that no useful signal information in the active period of the input signal is lost at DC. The DC compensation circuit samples the input signal during an inactive period of the input signal. Afterwhich, the unwanted DC noise is determined from the sampled signal and stored until an active period of the input signal. For example, the sampled signal can be filtered using a passband around DC so as to isolate the signal energy at DC during the inactive period. Since there is no useful signal information present during the inactive period, any signal energy at the output of the filter is necessarily unwanted DC noise.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 31, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Ramon A Gomez, Myles Wakayama
  • Patent number: 7295059
    Abstract: Methods and systems for reducing parasitic capacitance of a buffer for an electric circuit are disclosed herein. Aspects of the method may comprise coupling a gate of a first transistor to a first differential input of the buffer and coupling a gate of a second transistor to a second differential input of the buffer. The first and second transistors may be biased by a common mode output of a direct current (DC) voltage source for the buffer, where the common mode output of the DC voltage source may be coupled to the gate of the first transistor and the gate of the second transistor. The first transistor and the second transistor may comprise NMOS transistors and/or PMOS transistors. The DC voltage source may comprise a PMOS transistor and/or an NMOS transistor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 29, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventor: John Leete
  • Patent number: 7295552
    Abstract: A network switch including at least one data port interface supporting a plurality of data ports, at least one stack link interface configured to transmit data between the network switch and other network switches, and a CPU interface configured to communicate with a CPU. A memory management unit in communication with the at least one data port interface and the at least one stack link interface is provided along with a memory interface in communication with the at least one data port interface and the at least one stack link interface, wherein the memory interface is configured to communicate with a memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 19, 2000
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Shiri Kadambi, Mohan Kalkunte, Shekhar Ambe
  • Patent number: 7296141
    Abstract: A first tag is assigned to a branch instruction. Dependent on the type of branch instruction, a second tag is assigned to an instruction in the branch delay slot of the branch instruction. The second tag may equal the first tag if the branch delay slot is unconditional for that branch, and may equal a different tag if the branch delay slot is conditional for the branch. If the branch is mispredicted, the first tag is broadcast to pipeline stages that may have speculative instructions, and the first tag is compared to tags in the pipeline stages. If the tag in a pipeline stage matches the first tag, the instruction is not cancelled. If the tag mismatches, the instruction is cancelled.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 18, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventor: David A. Kruckemyer
  • Patent number: 7295949
    Abstract: A system and method for meeting performance goals in an electronic system in an energy efficient manner. Various aspects of the present invention may comprise operating an electrical circuit at a current level of performance and a current level of energy efficiency by providing the electrical circuit with electrical power characterized by a current set of power characteristics (e.g., utilizing a power control module). The current level of performance may be determined (e.g., by a performance monitor) and compared to a desired level of performance (e.g., by the power control module). If the current level of performance is higher than the desired level of performance, then the electrical circuit may be operated at a next (e.g., lower) level of performance and a next (e.g., higher) level of energy efficiency by providing the electrical circuit with electrical power characterized by a next set of power characteristics.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 21, 2005
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Pieter Vorenkamp, Neil Y. Kim
  • Patent number: 7295528
    Abstract: A method for use by one peer of peer wireless interfaces devices of a wireless communication device to cooperatively provide wireless communications in a multiple wireless communication environment with other peers of the peer wireless interface devices begins by initiating an atomic sequence of a plurality of atomic sequences. The processing continues by setting a priority level corresponding to the atomic sequence to produce a corresponding priority level. The processing continues by sensing priority level of at least one of the other peers to produce a sensed priority level. The processing continues by comparing the sensed priority level with the corresponding priority level. The processing then continues by performing at least a portion of the atomic sequence when the comparing of the sensed priority level with the corresponding priority level is favorable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 2004
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Brima B. Ibrahim, Kenneth Ma
  • Patent number: 7296086
    Abstract: A method for handshaking between DSL modems begins when a central office DSL modem transmits an initiation signal that utilizes a pattern of symbol times to indicate timing and long range handshake mode. When the initiation signal was interpreted to be the C-SYNC signal, the remote DSL modem prepares a response signal that is an R-SYNC signal, an R-TONE signal, or an R-FLAG signal in response to the C-SYNC signal. The central office DSL modem interprets the response signal to determine whether it is the R-SYNC signal, the R-TONE signal, or the R-FLAG signal. When the response signal is the R-SYNC signal, the central office DSL modem provides a C-GALF signal to indicate symbol rate for the synchronous mode of the handshaking to the remote DSL modem. In response to the C-GALF signal, the remote DSL modem provides the R-FLAG signal in accordance with the symbol rate for the synchronous mode of the handshaking.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 2003
    Date of Patent: November 13, 2007
    Assignee: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventor: Stephen Palm
  • Publication number: 20070258450
    Abstract: An Internet infrastructure with network devices and end point devices containing service module manager and service modules, that supports packet routing and vectoring based on payload comparison with spatially related templates. The network device that supports packet content analysis on arriving packet, consists of a plurality of packet switched interface circuitries, user interface circuitry, local storage comprising the service module manager software and a plurality of local service modules, and processing circuitry communicatively coupled to each of the packet switched interfaces, local storage and user interface circuit. The processing circuitry executes service module manager and thus analyzes the packet content and applies one or more selected local service module processing using the packet. The service module manager contains, for comparisons, header templates, spatially related payload trigger templates and spatially related payload supplemental templates.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 5, 2006
    Publication date: November 8, 2007
    Applicant: Broadcom Corporation, a California Corporation
    Inventor: James Bennett
  • Publication number: 20070257744
    Abstract: A programmable gain attenuator includes a termination resistor. A first termination switch connects one side of the termination resistor to a first output. A second termination switch connects another side of the termination resistor to a second output. A first resistor ladder is arranged between a first input and the first side of the termination resistor. A first plurality of switches connect a corresponding tap from the first resistor ladder to the first output. A second resistor ladder is arranged between a second input and the second side of the termination resistor. A second plurality of switches connect a corresponding tap from the second resistor ladder to the second output. A first switch of the first plurality of switches is turned on, followed by a second switch of first plurality of switches turned off, followed by a third switch of first plurality of switches turned on.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 9, 2007
    Publication date: November 8, 2007
    Applicant: Broadcom Corporation
    Inventors: Jan Westra, Jan Mulder, Franciscus van der Goes
  • Publication number: 20070260745
    Abstract: A method and apparatus according to one embodiment of the invention are operable to detect the accumulation of redundant ACKs (acknowledgment signals) in a queue for streaming data packet units, and to delete a portion of the redundant ACKs to improve transmission efficiencies. In one embodiment, only the most relevant ACK is kept before the ACKs are processed for transmission. In an alternate embodiment, a ratio of defined that limits the maximum number of redundant ACKs that may be deleted. This ratio is based upon a transmission window size. The teachings of the present disclosure may also be applied to flow control in a more general sense in which a plurality of redundant signals responses are being transmitted after being aggregated.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 28, 2006
    Publication date: November 8, 2007
    Applicant: Broadcom Corporation a California Corporation
    Inventor: Philippe Moutarlier