Dma-assisted irregular sampling sequences

A method comprising:

• transferring, by a direct memory access module coupled between memory and a conversion module, sampling configuration information for a first sample of a sampling sequence from the memory to a configuration register of the conversion module, wherein the conversion module obtains the first sample in accordance with the sampling configuration information in the configuration register either automatically or in response to a triggering signal based on a subset of the sampling configuration information that corresponds to a sampling mode criterion, a result of the first sample being stored in a result register of the conversion module;
• and
• in response to identifying an indication the first sample has been obtained by the conversion module:
• transferring, by the direct memory access module, the result of the first sample from the result register to the memory;
• and
• transferring, by the direct memory access module, second sampling configuration information for a second sample of the sampling sequence from the memory to the configuration register, the second sample following the first sample in the sampling sequence, wherein the conversion module obtains the second sample in accordance with the second sampling configuration information in the configuration register either automatically or in response to a second triggering signal based on a subset of the second sampling configuration information that corresponds to a second sampling mode criterion.

A control module comprising:

• a memory;
• a processing module coupled to the memory to write configuration information for a sampling sequence to the memory and obtain results corresponding to the sampling sequence from the memory, wherein the sampling sequence comprises a plurality of sampling processes;
• a conversion module to perform the sampling sequence in accordance with the configuration information by performing sampling processes at a plurality of sampling times to obtain the results, wherein at least some sampling times of the plurality of sampling times are nonperiodic with respect to the other sampling times of the plurality of sampling times;
• and
• a direct memory access module coupled between the memory and the conversion module to transfer the configuration information for the sampling sequence from the memory to the conversion module and transfer the results from the conversion module to the memory, wherein the direct memory access module sequentially transfers sampling configuration information for individual sampling processes of the sampling sequence from the memory to a configuration register of the conversion module and sequentially transfers sample results for individual sampling processes of the sampling sequence from a result register of the conversion module to the memory in response to indications from the conversion module that sampling processes have been performed.