System Architecture Design Considerations for Distributed WiMedia MAC Protocol

Embedded wireless communication devices are getting more and more complex with its requirements to meet higher speed, lower power consumption and enhanced functionality. In order to shorten the time to market and achieve flexibility of design for future upgrade, a hardware/firmware co-design approach is been adopted often. In this paper, we discuss some of the system architectural design considerations based on this approach to realize the full potential of the distributed WiMedia MAC protocol. To achieve optimal partition of hardware and firmware the best balance of critical timing blocks, complexity of implementation and flexibility of function upgrade are being considered. The protocol requirements and various other factors also influence the hardware architectural design decisions. Application of these concepts in the context of our realizing the full MAC protocol on an embedded platform with ease of portability to ASIC, has been discussed in this paper.