Configurable error detection and correction engine that has a specialized instruction set tailored for error detection and correction tasks

Abstract

An apparatus and method for efficiently performing error control coding tasks. An important aspect of the present invention is the provision of an ECC engine that responds to a specialized ECC instruction set having a plurality of instructions, such as a convolutional encoding instruction, a convolutional decoding instruction, and a cyclic redundancy code (CRC) instruction. The ECC engine has a plurality of functional building blocks (e.g., a configurable convolutional encoding functional block, a convolutional configurable decoding functional block, and a configurable cyclic redundancy check (CRC) functional block) that can be programmed or configured. A single instruction provided to the error control coding engine configures one of the functional blocks to execute a error control coding algorithm specified by the instruction. Each instruction also includes a plurality of fields that can be modified by the user. Each modified instruction dynamically re-configures one of the functional building blocks to implement a different ECC algorithm.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.