US 9,317,348 B2Granted

Integrated-circuit radio

AssigneeNordic Semiconductor ASA

InventorJoel David Stapleton

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Abstract

An integrated-circuit radio communication device (1) comprises a processor (7), memory (13), and radio communication logic (17). The memory (13) has a firmware module (23) stored at a firmware memory address, the firmware module (23) comprising instructions for controlling the radio communication logic (17) according to a predetermined radio protocol. The processor (7) is configured to receive supervisor call instructions, each having an associated supervisor call number, and to respond to a supervisor call instruction by (i) invoking a supervisor call handler in the firmware module (23), and (ii) making the supervisor call number available to the call handler. A software application (27) is loaded into the memory (13) of the device (1), and stored at a predetermined application memory address. It is arranged to invoke a radio communication function from the firmware module (23) by issuing a supervisor call instruction having an associated predetermined supervisor call number corresponding to the function to be invoked.

Claims23

Dependent claims

An integrated-circuit radio communication device, wherein:

the device comprises a processor, memory, and radio communication logic;
the memory has a firmware module stored at a firmware memory address, the firmware module comprising instructions for controlling the radio communication logic according to a predetermined radio protocol;
the processor is configured to receive supervisor call instructions, each having an associated supervisor call number, and to respond to a supervisor call instruction by (i) invoking a supervisor call handler in the firmware module, and (ii) making the supervisor call number available to the call handler;
the memory has a software application stored at a predetermined application memory address, the software application being arranged to invoke a radio communication function from the firmware module by issuing a supervisor call instruction having an associated predetermined supervisor call number corresponding to the function to be invoked;
the processor supports a plurality of interrupt priorities;
the processor is configured to handle supervisor call instructions from the software application as exceptions;
some functions in the firmware module are assigned a relatively high priority, with other functions in the firmware module having a relatively low priority;
the software application is arranged to handle interrupts, assigning a relatively high priority to some event-driven functions, and a relatively low priority to other event-driven functions;
and
the high and low software application priorities are interleaved with the high and low firmware module priorities.

7 more elements

An integrated-circuit radio communication device, wherein:

the device comprises a processor, memory, and radio communication logic;
the memory has a firmware module stored at a firmware memory address, the firmware module comprising protocol stack instructions for controlling the radio communication logic according to a predetermined radio protocol;
the processor is configured to receive supervisor call instructions, each having an associated supervisor call number, and to respond to a supervisor call instruction by (i) invoking a supervisor call handler in the firmware module, and (ii) making the supervisor call number available to the call handler;
the memory has a software application stored at a predetermined application memory address, the software application being arranged to invoke a radio communication function from the firmware module by issuing a supervisor call instruction having an associated predetermined supervisor call number corresponding to the function to be invoked;
and
the firmware module can be substantially disabled via a call to the firmware module, so as to cause the firmware module to reset the protocol stack and to disable any memory protection in order to give resources back to the software application, and wherein, when disabled, the firmware module will forward all interrupts to the software application.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 13/924,160Filed 21 Jun 2013
Priority: GB 1211423.727 Jun 2012
Published: US 2014/0007141 A12 Jan 2014
Granted: 19 Apr 2016
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

G06F 9/547
Interprogram communication: remote procedure calls [RPC]; Web services
G06F 8/65
Software deployment: updates
G06F 9/44521
Program loading or initiating: dynamic linking or loading; Link editing at or after load time, e.g. Java class loading
G06F 9/44557
Program loading or initiating: code layout in executable memory