Caching Method and System for Video Coding

A digital system comprising:

• a reference data storage component configured to store a plurality of reference blocks of pixels;
• a reference data cache component configured to store reference data blocks from at least one of the plurality of reference blocks of pixels, wherein a reference data block is requested from the reference data cache component using a tiled addressing scheme to identify the reference data block;
• and
• a motion compensation component configured to request a reference data block from the reference data cache component using the tiled addressing scheme,
• wherein the tiled addressing scheme comprises addressing a reference data block using an x coordinate and a y coordinate of the reference data block in a reference block of pixels, and a reference block identifier specifying which reference block of pixels in the plurality of reference blocks of pixels comprises the reference data block.

A method of caching reference data in a reference data cache, the method comprising:

• receiving an address of a reference data block in the reference data cache, wherein the address comprises an x coordinate and a y coordinate of the reference data block in a reference block of pixels and a reference block identifier specifying which of a plurality of reference blocks of pixels comprises the reference data block;
• retrieving the reference data block from reference data storage when the reference block identifier does not identify a most recently generated reference block of pixels;
• using an index and a tag comprising the reference block identifier to determine whether the reference data block is in a set of cache lines in the reference data cache when the reference block identifier identifies a most recently generated reference block of pixels, wherein the index is computed using a predetermined number of bits from the x coordinate and a predetermined number of bits from the y coordinate;
• and
• retrieving the reference data block from reference data storage when the reference data block is not in the set of cache lines.