CN118972210A - Communication device and host system based on bit expansion mechanism to reduce communication interference - Google Patents

Abstract

A communication device and host system for reducing communication interference based on a bit expansion mechanism are provided. A communication device comprising: a wired communication circuit, a wireless communication circuit, and a bit stream converter. The wired communication circuit is used for carrying out wired communication with the host system to exchange information. The wireless communication circuit is configured to wirelessly communicate with a wireless communication device to exchange information. The bit stream converter is used for selectively carrying out bit stream conversion processing on the bit stream transmitted between the communication device and the host system according to the frequency band information corresponding to the wireless communication.

Description

Communication device and host system for reducing communication interference based on bit expansion mechanism

Technical Field

The present invention relates to the field of communications, and more particularly, to a communication device and a related host system for reducing communication interference based on a bit expansion mechanism.

Background

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) 3.0gen1 communication protocol uses a link rate of 5Gbps (LinkRate) for transmission. Also, in order to reduce electromagnetic interference (Electromagnetic Interference, EMI), USB 3.0gen1 also uses scrambling (Scrambling) and Spread Spectrum (Spread Spectrum) mechanisms to avoid excessive concentration of the Spectrum of the digital signal at a specific frequency band. However, this results in the USB 3.0gen1 communication protocol producing significant interference to the 2.5GHz band during data transmission. This band is quite close to the 2.4GHz band used for wireless communication such as wireless network (Wi-Fi)/Bluetooth (Bluetooth). Furthermore, since the spread spectrum of USB 3.0 uses a down-spread mechanism, it may severely interfere with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth communications in the 2.4GHz band. Such interference can have a significant impact on the actual amount of data transmitted due to attenuation in signal strength (e.g., long-range transmission), which is equivalent to limiting the effective transmission distance for Wi-Fi or bluetooth communications. In the related art, although some methods have been proposed to solve the interference caused by USB communication to Wi-Fi or bluetooth communication, such as changing circuit layout, adding shielding, or switching USB transmission modes, these methods have limitations, and cannot fully solve the problem.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above, the present invention proposes a method for converting a bit stream of USB communication by using a bit expansion mechanism, so as to reduce the number of consecutive 0/1 changes in the bit stream of USB communication per unit time. Such a mechanism may change the frequency band affected by the USB communication, thereby avoiding interference to the frequency band used by the wireless communication.

An embodiment of the present invention provides a communication device including: a wired communication circuit, a wireless communication circuit, and a bit stream converter. The wired communication circuit is used for carrying out wired communication with the host system to exchange information. The wireless communication circuit is configured to wirelessly communicate with a wireless communication device to exchange information. The bit stream converter is used for selectively carrying out bit stream conversion processing on the bit stream transmitted between the communication device and the host system according to the frequency band information corresponding to the wireless communication.

The embodiment of the invention provides a host system. The host system includes: a wired communication circuit and a bit stream converter. The wired communication circuit is used for carrying out wired communication with the communication device to exchange information. Wherein the communication device is further configured to wirelessly communicate with the wireless communication device to exchange information. The bit stream converter is used for selectively carrying out bit stream conversion processing on the bit stream transmitted between the communication device and the host system according to the frequency band information corresponding to the wireless communication.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a host system and a communication device according to an embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 2 shows how embodiments of the present invention use different bit-spreading patterns to change the reference frequency of the transmitted signal.

Fig. 3 illustrates bit stream patterns of wired communication between the host system and the communication device shown in fig. 1 at different stages.

Detailed Description

In the following text, numerous specific details are described to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the invention for the reader. One skilled in the relevant art will recognize, however, how to implement the invention without one or more of the specific details, or with other methods or components or materials, etc. In other instances, well-known structures, materials, or operations are not shown or described in detail to avoid obscuring aspects of the invention.

Reference in the specification to "one embodiment" means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment may be included in at least one embodiment of the invention. Thus, the appearances of the phrase "in one embodiment" in various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics described above may be combined in any suitable manner in one or more embodiments.

Referring to fig. 1, a schematic diagram of a host system and a communication device according to an embodiment of the invention is shown. As shown, the host system 100 includes, but is not limited to, a Wi-Fi device driver (Wi-FI DEVICE DRIVER) 110, a USB host controller driver (USB Host Controller Driver) 120, a USB medium access control (Medium Access Control) layer circuit (hereinafter referred to as USB MAC circuit) 130, a bitstream converter (Bit Stream Converter) 140, and a USB Physical layer circuit (hereinafter referred to as USBPHY circuit) 150. Furthermore, the communication device 200 includes wireless communication circuits 210 and 220, a USB MAC circuit 230, a bit stream converter 240, and a USB PHY circuit 250. Wherein the Wi-Fi device driver 110, the USB host controller driver 120, and the USB device control circuits 210 and 220 are respectively located at the application layers (Application Layer) of the host system 100 and the communication device 200; USB MAC circuits 130 and 230 are located at the link layer Transport (LINK LAYER Transport) of host system 100 and communication device 200, respectively; the USB PHY circuits 150 and 250 are located at the physical layers of the host system 100 and the communication device 200, respectively. As described above, the host system 100 and the communication device 200 can perform data transmission and information exchange through the USB bus.

In one embodiment, host system 100 may include a variety of forms, such as personal computers (including desktop and notebook computers), mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablet computers), multimedia players (e.g., digital music players or streaming media players), printers, digital cameras, and embedded systems (e.g., home automation systems or automotive infotainment systems), among others. The communication device 200 may then be a Wireless network interface device (Wireless network INTERFACE DEVICE) with the capability to connect to one or more types of Wireless networks, including but not limited to Wi-Fi, bluetooth (Bluetooth), or other Wireless communication protocols. Specifically, the communications device 200 enables the host system 100 to have the capability to connect to a Wi-Fi network for data transfer and information exchange with Wi-Fi devices (e.g., wireless routers, smart televisions, network attached storage (Network Attached Storage, NAS), game hosts, etc.). Similarly, the communication device 200 can also provide a connection between the host system 100 and a bluetooth network for data transmission and information exchange with bluetooth devices (e.g., bluetooth horn, bluetooth headset, smart watch, etc.). The host system 100 is capable of data transmission and information exchange with one or more wireless communication devices (not shown here) via the capabilities of the communication device 200. In other words, the host system 100 may communicate data and information with one or more wireless communication devices via USB communication with the communication device 200.

The wireless communication circuits 210 and 220 in the communication device 200 are configured to wirelessly communicate with one or more wireless communication devices via one or more wireless networks including Wi-Fi and bluetooth, and exchange information with the Wi-Fi device driver 110 and the USB host controller driver 120 of the host system 100 using USB communication to obtain control of the Wi-Fi device driver 110 and the USB host controller driver 120 of the host system 100. Further, the USB MAC circuits 130 and 230 and the USB PHY circuits 150 and 250 are respectively used as wired communication circuits in the host system 100 and the communication device 200, and are responsible for performing wired communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200. The USB MAC circuits 130 and 230 are used to perform specific operations and processes on data/signals/information related to the MAC layer. Specifically, these processes include (but are not limited to): and encapsulating and decapsulating the data received from the upper layer, converting the data into packets of a specific format, and performing error checking in the received packets. The USB PHY circuits 150 and 250 are used to perform specific operations and processes on data/signals/information associated with the PHY layer. Specifically, these processes include (but are not limited to): converting the data from digital form to a signal that can be transmitted on a physical medium and reconverting the signal back to digital form at the receiving end, time synchronizing the transmission and reception of the data.

The bit stream converter 140 is used in a particular case to perform bit stream conversion between the USB MAC circuit 130 and the USB PHY circuit 150. For example, the data transmitted by the USB MAC circuit 130 to the USB PHY circuit 150 (i.e., the USB downstream data transmitted by the host system 100 to the communication device 200) is bit-expanded, and the data transmitted by the USB PHY circuit 150 to the USB MAC circuit 130 (i.e., the USB upstream data transmitted by the communication device 200 to the host system 100) is bit-restored. Furthermore, the bit stream converter 240 is used for performing bit stream conversion between the USB MAC circuit 230 and the USB PHY circuit 250 in a specific case. For example, the data transmitted by the USB MAC circuit 230 to the USB PHY circuit 250 (i.e., the USB upstream data transmitted by the communication device 200 to the host system 100) is bit-expanded, and the data transmitted by the USB PHY circuit 250 to the USB MAC circuit 230 (i.e., the USB downstream data transmitted by the host system 100 to the communication device 200) is bit-restored.

Further, the bit stream converter 140 and the bit stream converter 240 perform bit stream conversion according to a signal band corresponding to the wireless communication between the communication device 200 and the wireless communication device and a bit rate corresponding to the wired communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200. The host system 100 can obtain the signal band corresponding to the wireless communication device 200 and the wireless communication device through the Wi-Fi device driver 110, and generate band information. The host system 100 can also learn a transmission mode corresponding to USB communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200 through the USB host controller driver 120, thereby generating bit rate information. On the other hand, the communication device 200 can also know the band information and the bit rate information through the wireless communication circuits 210 and 220. In this way, the bitstream converter 140 and the bitstream converter 240 can be configured to perform bitstream conversion according to the band information and the bitrate information.

Fig. 2 illustrates the changes that different bit stream conversion forms cause to the signal frequency of the wired communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200. First, assuming that "0" and "1" in the bit stream are uniformly distributed, the reference frequency (Fb) of the transmission signal of the wired communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200 corresponds to a Bit Rate (BR) of 1/2. That is, the reference frequency fb=0.5 BR/(bit). Taking the bit rate of 5Gbps of USB 3.0gen1 as an example, when the bit stream is not subjected to the bit expansion process, the transmission signal reference frequency of the wired communication (i.e., USB communication) between the host system 100 and the communication device 200 is 2.5GHz, which means that the wired communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200 is likely to cause interference to the frequency band of 2.5GHz (i.e., affected frequency band) at this time. On the other hand, when the bit stream is subjected to bit expansion of 1 bit (1 original bit is repeated 1 time), the transmission signal reference frequency of USB 3.0gen1 communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200 becomes 1.25GHz, which means that the affected frequency band becomes 1.25GHz. With continued reference to fig. 2, if the bit stream is subjected to 3-bit expansion (1 original bit is repeated 3 times), the reference frequency of the transmission signal of the USB 3.0gen1 communication will become 0.625GHz. From this, it is clear that the bit stream subjected to the bit expansion process is less likely to interfere with the 2.4GHz band than the bit stream not subjected to the bit expansion process. Therefore, when the affected frequency band corresponding to the reference frequency of the transmission signal of the wired communication overlaps with the signal frequency band corresponding to the wireless communication, the present invention activates the bit stream converters 140 and 240 to perform bit stream conversion. The bit stream converters 140 and 240 may reduce the reference frequency of the USB transmission signal by performing bit expansion on the bit stream of the original data sent from the MAC circuits 130 and 230 to reduce the number of consecutive "0/1" changes (i.e. from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 0) in the bit stream per unit time, so as to change the affected frequency band, so that the interference of the USB communication on the signal frequency band of the wireless communication can be avoided.

It should be noted that, although in the embodiment shown in fig. 2, the bit expansion performed by the bit stream converter 140 and the bit stream converter 240 is the recovered original bit, in other embodiments of the present invention, the bit expansion performed by the bit stream converter 140 and the bit stream converter 240 may be to add other padding data, such as a Parity Code (Parity Code) or an error correction Code (Error Correction Code) corresponding to the original bit stream, to the original bit stream.

In one embodiment, when the communication device 200 is currently using the 2.4GHz frequency band to perform wireless communication with another wireless communication device, such as Wi-Fi or bluetooth communication, the bit stream converter 140 and the bit stream converter 240 may then select whether to perform bit expansion according to the bit rate information. When the bit rate information indicates that the transmission mode used between the host system 100 and the communication apparatus 200 corresponds to a bit rate of 5Gbps (e.g., USB 3.0, USB 3.1gen1, USB 3.2gen1x1), it means that the affected frequency band is a frequency band of 2.5 GHz. To avoid that USB communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200 interferes with wireless communication between the communication device 200 and the wireless communication device, the bit stream converter 140 and the bit stream converter 240 may perform bit expansion, thereby converting the affected frequency band from 2.5GHz to 1.25GHz (performing 1 bit expansion) or 0.625GHz (performing 3 bit expansion). In one embodiment, when the communication device 200 is currently using the 5GHz band for Wi-Fi communication with another wireless communication device, the bit stream converter 140 and the bit stream converter 240 then select whether to perform bit stream expansion based on the bit rate information. When the bit rate information indicates that the transmission mode used between the host system 100 and the communication apparatus 200 corresponds to a bit rate of 10Gbps (e.g., USB 3.1gen2, USB 3.2gen1x2, USB 3.2gen2x1), it means that the affected frequency band is a frequency band of 5 GHz. To avoid that the wired communication between the host system 100 and the communication device 200 interferes with the wireless communication between the communication device 200 and the wireless communication device, the bit stream converter 140 and the bit stream converter 240 perform bit expansion, thereby converting the affected frequency band from 5GHz to 2.5GHz (performing 1 bit expansion) or 1.25GHz (performing 3 bit expansion).

Referring to fig. 1and 3, the bit stream patterns of the host system 100 and the communication device 200 are changed at different stages. Wherein the bit streams sent or received by the USB MAC circuits 130 and 230 have an unexpanded original pattern (i.e., pattern (a)), and the bit streams sent or received by the bit stream converters 140 and 240 or the bit streams transmitted between the USB buses between the host system 100 and the communication device 200 have an expanded pattern (i.e., pattern (b)). The bit stream converters 140 and 240 perform bit reduction on the extended bit stream. For example, when USB downstream transmission is performed, data is transmitted from the host system 100 to the communication device 200, and the bit stream converter 240 in the communication device 200 restores the expanded bit stream (completed by the bit converter 140). The bitstream converter 240 (or the bitstream converter 140) may detect a special symbol sent by the host system 100 (or the communication device 200) within a specific period of time (for example, the host system 100 (or the communication device 200) may transmit an idle pattern (IDLE PATTERN) to the communication device 200 (or the host system 100) when no substantial data is transmitted), and automatically determine whether the currently transmitted bitstream is subjected to expansion processing or non-expansion processing, thereby determining whether to perform expansion recovery on the received bitstream. This is because these special symbols have a known pattern, and the reception end easily recognizes whether or not the expansion process has been performed.

Note that although in the above embodiments, the bit stream converters 140 and 240 are used to perform bit expansion on the bit stream of the USB communication to avoid interference to the wireless communication, the bit stream converters 140 and 240 of the present invention may be further applied to other types of wired communication, especially when the reference frequency of the transmission signal of the wired communication overlaps with the signal band of the wireless communication. In addition, although in the above embodiments, the bit stream converters 140 and 240 are independent of the USB MAC circuits 130 and 230, and independent of the USB PHY circuits 150 and 250. However, in some embodiments of the present invention, bit stream converters 140 and 240 may be part of USB MAC circuits 130 and 230, respectively, or part of USBPHY circuits 150 and 250, respectively. Furthermore, although the above embodiments refer to how a specific bit rate of wired communication interferes with a specific signal band of wireless communication, the specific values in the embodiments are not limitations of the present invention, and the present invention may also be applied in situations where different bit rates and different signal bands interfere with each other.

Embodiments of the invention may be embodied as an apparatus, method or computer program product. Accordingly, embodiments of the present invention may take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may all generally be referred to as a "module" or "system. Furthermore, embodiments of the invention may take the form of a computer program product embodied in any tangible medium of expression having computer-usable program code embodied in the medium. In terms of hardware, the present invention may be implemented by applying any of the following techniques or related combinations: individual operation logic of logic gates capable of performing logic functions according to data signals, and Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), programmable Gate Arrays (PGAs) or field programmable gate arrays (field programmable GATE ARRAY, FPGAs) with appropriate combinational logic.

The flowcharts and block diagrams illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods and computer program products according to embodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of program code, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems, or combinations of special purpose hardware and computer program instructions. These computer program instructions may be stored in a readable computer medium to direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the readable computer medium produce an article of manufacture including instructions which implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

The foregoing description is only of the preferred embodiments of the invention, and all changes and modifications that come within the meaning and range of equivalency of the claims are therefore intended to be embraced therein.

Claims (10)

1. A communication device, comprising:

A wired communication circuit for performing wired communication with the host system to exchange information;

a wireless communication circuit for wirelessly communicating with a wireless communication device to exchange information; and

And the bit stream converter is used for selectively carrying out bit stream conversion processing on the bit stream transmitted between the communication device and the host system according to the frequency band information corresponding to the wireless communication.

2. The communication device of claim 1, wherein the wired communication circuit comprises:

Physical layer circuitry for operating or processing signals, data or information associated with the physical layer of the wired communication; and

Medium access control layer circuitry to operate on or process signals, data or information associated with the medium access control layer circuitry for the wired communication;

The bit stream converter is used for carrying out bit stream conversion processing on the bit stream between the physical layer circuit and the medium access control layer circuit.

3. The communication device of claim 1, wherein the bit stream converter is configured to perform bit expansion processing on the bit stream according to bit rate information corresponding to the wired communication and the band information corresponding to the wireless communication.

4. The communication device of claim 3, wherein the bitstream converter is configured to determine an affected frequency band according to the bitrate information, and determine a number of extension bits corresponding to the bit extension process according to the affected frequency band and the frequency band information.

5. A communication device as claimed in claim 3, wherein the bit stream converter is arranged to perform the bit expansion process on the bits to incorporate into the bit stream one or more repeated bits corresponding to each bit in the bit stream.

6. The communication device of claim 1, wherein the wired communication circuit is a universal serial bus communication circuit, and the wired communication may be a wired communication based on one of the standards USB 3.0, USB 3.1gen1, USB 3.2gen1x1, USB 3.1gen2, USB 3.2gen1x2, USB 3.2gen2x1, and the like.

7. The communication device of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication circuit is an IEEE 802.11 communication circuit, and the wireless communication may be a wireless communication based on one of the standards IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11ax, IEEE 802.11be, etc.

8. The communication device of claim 1, wherein the bitstream converter performs a bit reduction process on the bitstream when the bitstream is part of downstream data transmitted to the communication device by the host system, thereby removing duplicate bits in the bitstream; and when the bit stream is a part of the uplink data transmitted to the host system by the communication device, the bit stream converter performs bit expansion processing on the bit stream, thereby adding repeated bits to the bit stream.

9. A host system, comprising:

A wired communication circuit for performing wired communication with a communication device for exchanging information, wherein the communication device is further used for performing wireless communication with a wireless communication device for exchanging information; and

And the bit stream converter is used for selectively carrying out bit stream conversion processing on the bit stream transmitted between the communication device and the host system according to the frequency band information corresponding to the wireless communication.

10. The host system of claim 9, wherein the wired communication circuit comprises:

Physical layer circuitry for operating or processing signals, data or information associated with the physical layer of the wired communication; and

Medium access control layer circuitry to operate on or process signals, data or information associated with the medium access control layer circuitry for the wired communication;

The bit stream converter is used for carrying out bit stream conversion processing on the bit stream between the physical layer circuit and the medium access control layer circuit.