超寬頻介質存取控制器之軟硬體協同設計

Abstract

超寬頻(Ultra-Wideband，UWB)是一種高傳輸速率且短距離的無線通訊技術，目標是希望以無線來取代有線，使個人為中心的電子設備(例如：電腦、PDA、以及其他的行動電子產品)能夠透過低成本的UWB裝置相互連結，擺脫電纜的束縛與不便，讓生活更加便利。

本篇論文以軟硬體協同設計(Hardware/Software Codesign)的方式來設計一個以IEEE 802.15.3 MAC為基礎的UWB介質存取控制器。我們以軟體為主來實作UWB介質存取控制器的好處是：軟體實作可以縮短系統開發的時間，而且版本更新上也比較容易。但是也無法完全由軟體來實作，這是因為封包的接收，還是必須透過Interrupt事件得知，所以至少要設計會發Interrupt機制的硬體。因此我們採用了軟硬體協同設計的方式來設計。

我們以軟體為主來設計UWB介質存取控制器所遭遇到的主要困難是Superframe Timing和TDMA Timing準確性的問題。因此本篇論文的貢獻是如何讓軟體為主的設計近似於純硬體設計之Superframe Timing和TDMA Timing。除了Timing的問題，我們也設計了一套記憶體管理的方式，來加速封包的收送，以滿足UWB高速傳輸的特性。

Ultra-Wideband (UWB) is a wireless technology features high transfer speed and short distance range communication. UWB aims personal devices (i.e. PC, PDA, and others) at wire-replacement. By connecting with UWB, personal devices becomes convenient and easy to use.

In thus paper, we design an media access control unit (MAC) of UWB based on IEEE 802.15.3 specification by hardware/software co-design. The merit of software implementation comes from shorter design time and easier version update. However, software implementation is lack of interrupt scheme handles packet receiving. We still need some hardware implementation and thus we adopt hardware/software co-design.

The timing accuracy of superframe and TDMA is the main problems of UWB MAC design by software implementation. We propose a software scheme that approaches hardware timing accuracy of superframe and TDMA. In addition to timing problem, a memory management scheme used to accelerate packet sending and receiving efficiency in order to achieve high transfer speed feature of UWB.