Αποδοτική αρχιτεκτονική οικιακής πύλης για την υποστήριξη ενοποιημένων υπηρεσιών

Abstract

The thesis proposes a system architecture for residential gateways in the form of a Network Processor. The Residential Gateway is the device that integrates all home networks (Ethernet, LON, HPNA, etc) and in the same time provides Internet and PSTN access. The proposed architecture is configurable so as to allow the adoption of one, among a variety of different access technologies and interfaces. The thesis presents a board level implementation of a residential gateway. The system is analyzed and its problems and bottlenecks are encountered. In the second part of the document the problems that arose are overcome through the development of a SoC (System on Chip) that decentralizes protocol processing. Its architecture is innovative based on three major hardware blocks; the Protocol Processing units, the Header Processing unit and the specifically designed DMA controller. All the three operate in a pipelined fashion in order to provide lookups, data transfer and protocol processing in an efficient way, thus alleviating the central processor from time consuming operations.