Passive optical network (PON) packet processor
AssigneeBroadcom Corporation
InventorsGil Levy, Eliezer Weitz, Eli Elmoalem, Gal Sitton
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A passive optical network (PON) packet processor for processing PON traffic includes a core processor for executing threads related to the processing of PON traffic and a plurality of hardware (HW) accelerators coupled to the core processor for accelerating the processing of said PON traffic. A memory unit is coupled to the core processor for maintaining program and traffic data. In an embodiment of the present invention, the PON packet processor includes a scheduler that optimizes the execution of PON related tasks.
Claims25
A passive optical network (PON) packet processor for processing PON traffic, said PON packet processor comprising:
- a core processor configured to execute a plurality of threads related to said processing of said PON traffic, said PON traffic comprising upstream data including Ethernet frames and downstream data chunks;
- a plurality of hardware (HW) accelerators, coupled to said core processor, configured to accelerate and to optimize execution of said plurality of threads, said plurality of HW accelerators being configured to accelerate execution of said plurality of threads as compared to executing said plurality of threads using only said core processor,
- wherein a first HW accelerator of said plurality of HW accelerators comprises:
- a scheduler having a first mechanism configured to perform priority-based selection of said plurality of threads and a second mechanism configured to enable requests for execution of said plurality of threads;
- and
- a memory unit, coupled to said core processor, that stores program and traffic data.
A method of executing passive optical network (PON) traffic processing related threads, said method comprising:
- receiving requests for invoking said PON traffic processing related threads, wherein each of said PON traffic processing related thread is at least one of:
- an Ethernet transmit (TX) thread to construct Ethernet frames to be sent to a subscriber device coupled to an optical line unit (ONU), an Ethernet receive (RX) thread to process Ethernet frames received from said subscriber device connected, a PON transmit (TX) thread to transmit traffic to an optical line terminal (OLT), or a PON receive (RX) thread to receive traffic from said OLT;
- selecting a thread of said PON traffic processing related threads to be executed based on a priority policy and a request to execute said PON traffic processing related threads
- executing said selected thread using a hardware (HW) accelerator that is separate from a core processor, said executing of said selected thread using said HW accelerator being accelerated as compared to executing said thread using only said core processor;
- and
- sending an identification (ID) number of said selected thread.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.