Method And Apparatus For Compressing And Decompressing Data

Apparatus for decompressing a compressed data set, the compressed data set comprising a plurality of compressed data segments, in which each compressed data segment corresponds to an uncompressed size of uncompressed data, the apparatus comprising:

• a plurality of processing units;
• and
• a shared memory;
• in which the apparatus is operable to:
• load the compressed data set into the shared memory so that each compressed data segment is stored into a respective memory region of the shared memory, wherein the respective memory region has a size equal to the uncompressed size of the corresponding uncompressed data segment;
• decompress the compressed data segments with the processing units;
• and
• store each decompressed data segment back to its respective memory region within the shared memory,
• the apparatus being further operable to:
• load the compressed data set into the shared memory so that the plurality of compressed data segments are arranged contiguously within the shared memory;
• and
• fragment the compressed data set into the plurality of compressed data segments so that each compressed data segment is stored into the respective memory region of the shared memory.

A computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method of decompressing a compressed data set, the processor having a plurality of processing units and a shared memory, the compressed data set comprising a plurality of compressed data segments, each compressed data segment corresponding to an uncompressed size of uncompressed data, the method comprising the steps of:

• loading the compressed data set into the shared memory so that each compressed data segment is stored into a respective memory region of the shared memory, wherein the respective memory region has a size equal to the uncompressed size of the corresponding uncompressed data segment;
• decompressing the compressed data segments with the processing units;
• and
• storing each decompressed data segment back to its respective memory region within the shared memory;
• wherein the loading comprises:
• loading the compressed data set into the shared memory so that the plurality of compressed data segments are arranged contiguously within the shared memory;
• and
• fragmenting the compressed data set into the plurality of compressed data segments so that each compressed data segment is stored into the respective memory region of the shared memory.