Open Collections

A Protocol decoding accelerator (PDA)

University of British Columbia

With the increasing need for distributed processing and computer networking, the demand for open systems interconnection (OSI) has also increased. In [Davis-88], Davis et al propose a new generation portable protocol tester that will be able to provide conformance testing for OSI protocol implementations. In this thesis report, a specialized programmable hardware module, called protocol decoding accelerator (PDA), is designed to be used as the PDU decoder engine being defined in the Davis architecture. PDU decoding is the process of parsing the PDU header fields into a data structure that can be more readily used by other processes. Decoding can be time consuming because there is a large variety of PDU fields and formats. Conventional approach to PDU decoding is often implemented as software program designed for general purpose processor architecture. However, most general purpose processors do not handle PDU decoding efficiently. There are other VLSI protocol controllers, but they all have limited programmability and flexibility. The PDA is developed based on a simple instruction set with dedicated hardware to optimize important functions. Using selected PDU types and decoding programs from OSI layer 2 to 4 protocols, the resulting PDA design shows a minimum of 16 times faster average execution time and about five times smaller program size when compared to a 68000 system.

Text

2010-09-27

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/28727

Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of British Columbia

Graduate