Multimedia I/O system architecture for advanced digital television

1. A multimedia system comprising:

an I/O (input/output) control chip including a first input port to receive a first audio/video data stream from an external source, an interface bridge to receive a second audio/video data stream from a processing core chip via one or more shared I/O channels, and one or more audio/video sub-processing engines to merge the first audio/video data stream and the second audio/video data stream to generate a merged audio/video data stream, the interface bridge further to transfer the merged audio/video data stream from the one or more audio/video sub-processing engines to the processing core chip via the one or more shared I/O channels;

the processing core chip for processing the merged audio/video data stream received from the I/O control chip to output a picture-in-picture display, and for generating the second audio/video data stream; and

the one or more shared I/O channels for transferring the merged audio/video data stream from the I/O control chip to the processing core chip and transferring the second audio/video data stream from the processing core chip to the I/O control chip.

2. The multimedia system of claim 1 , wherein the I/O control chip further includes a port processor to receive the first audio/video data stream from the external source and to receive a digital audio/video data stream from an analog to digital converter, the port processor to output a main audio/video data stream to an audio/video sub-processing engine and a raw or scaled audio/video data stream to the interface bridge, and wherein the interface bridge is further configured to output the raw or scaled audio/video data stream to the processing core chip over the one or more shared I/O channels.

3. The multimedia system of claim 2 , wherein the I/O control chip further includes the analog to digital converter to convert an analog audio/video data stream into the digital audio/video data stream.

4. The multimedia system of claim 3 , wherein the audio/video sub-processing engine is configured to merge the main audio/video data stream and the second audio/video data stream to generate the merged audio/video data stream.

5. The multimedia system of claim 2 , wherein the port processor is an HDMI™ (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)/DVI™ (Digital Visual Interface) compatible processor.

6. An apparatus I/O (input/output) control chip operable to process two or more audio/video data streams simultaneously to a processing core chip , the I/O control chip comprising:

a first input port to receive a first audio/video data stream from an external source;

an interface bridge to receive a second audio/video data stream from the processing core chip via one or more shared I/O channels, the interface bridge coupled to the one or more shared I/O channels;

I/O interface blocks including:

a port processor to receive the first audio/video data stream and the second audio/video data stream and to output a main audio/video data stream comprising the first and second audio/video data streams and a raw or scaled digital video/audio data stream, and one or more audio/video sub-processing engines to receive the main audio/video data stream from the port processor and to merge the first and second audio/video data streams of the main audio/video data stream received from the port processor into a merged audio/video data stream, wherein the merged audio/video data stream comprises a picture-in-picture display representation of the first and second audio/video data streams;

wherein the interface bridge is configured to receive the merged audio/video data stream from the one or more audio/video sub-processing engines and the raw or scaled digital video/audio data stream from the port processor and to transfer the merged audio/video data stream via the one or more shared I/O channels to the processing core chip for further processing, wherein the interface bridge is configured to operate in either a first mode or a second mode, wherein when operating in the first mode, the interface bridge stuffs blank areas of the merged audio/video data stream with sub-stream data from the raw or scaled audio/video data stream, and wherein when operating in the second mode, the interface bridge applies arbitration to arbitrate between the merged audio/video stream and the raw or scaled audio/video stream.

7. The apparatus I/O control chip of claim 6 , wherein the I/O interface blocks further include an analog to digital converter to convert an analog audio/video data stream into a digital audio/video stream for processing by the port processor.

8. The apparatus I/O control chip of claim 6 , wherein the port processor is an HDMFI™ (High-Definition Multimedia Interface)/DVI™ (Digital Visual Interface) compatible processor.

9. A method comprising:

receiving two or more audio/video data streams at a port processor of an I/O control chip, the two or more audio/video data streams including a first audio/video data stream and a second audio/video data stream;

providing the two or more audio/video data streams simultaneously to one or more audio/video sub-processing engines of the I/O control chip:

merging the two or more audio/video data streams into a merged audio/video data stream, wherein the merged audio/video data streams comprises a picture-in-picture display representation of the two or more audio/video data streams;

receiving bus transactions including the merged audio/video data stream at an interface bridge of the I/O interface chip;

while operating the interface bridge in a first mode, stuffing blank areas of the merged audio/video data stream with sub-stream data from a raw or scaled audio/video data stream outputted by the port processor to transfer the merged audio/video data stream to a processing core chip via one or more shared I/O channels between the I/O interface chip and the processing core chip; and

while operating the interface bridge in a second mode, applying arbitration to arbitrate between the merged audio/video data stream and the raw or scaled audio/video data stream to transfer the merged audio/video data stream to the processing core via the one or more shared I/O channels between the I/O interface chip and the processing core chip.

10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising;

receiving an analog audio/video data stream at the I/O control chip;

converting the analog audio/video data stream into a digital audio/video data stream at an analog to digital converter; and

providing the digital audio/video data stream to the port processor, the digital audio/video data stream being one of the two or more audio/video data streams received by the port processor.

11. The multimedia system of claim 1 , wherein the I/O control chip is operable to reduce certain data traffic in the transfer of the merged audio/video data stream via the one or more shared I/O channels between the I/O controller chip and the processing core chip.

12. The multimedia system of claim 11 , wherein reducing the data traffic in the transfer of the merged audio/video data stream includes one or more of down-scaling, frame-rate controlling, and compressing.

13. The multimedia system of claim 1 , wherein the processing core chip controls each I/O interface block of the I/O control chip.

14. The multimedia system of claim 13 , wherein each of the I/O interface blocks is assigned a mutually exclusive address range, and wherein the processing core chip controls the I/O interface blocks using memory read and write operations.

15. The I/O control chip of claim 6 , wherein the I/O control chip is operable to reduce certain data traffic in the transfer of the merged audio/video data stream between the I/O control chip and the processing core chip.

16. The method of claim 9 , further comprising the I/O control chip reducing certain data traffic in the transfer of the merged audio/video data stream between the I/O control chip and the processing core chip.

17. The multimedia system of claim 1 , wherein the interface bridge is configured to operate in either a first mode or a second mode, wherein when operating in the first mode, the interface bridge stuffs blank areas of the merged audio/video data stream with sub-stream data from a raw or scaled audio/video data stream outputted by a port processor, and wherein when operating in the second mode, the interface bridge applies arbitration to arbitrate between the merged audio/video data stream and the raw or scaled audio/video stream.

18. The multimedia system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more audio/video sub-processing engines generate the picture-in-picture display.

19. The multimedia system of claim 1 , wherein the processing core chip generates the picture-in-picture display.

20. The multimedia system of claim 1 , wherein the I/O control chip further includes a port processor comprising:

a data decryption engine to decrypt the first digital audio/video data stream;

a multiplexer for multiplexing the first and second digital audio/video data streams to output a main audio/video data stream and a supplemental audio/video data stream;

and a downscaling or compression engine to downscale or compress the supplemental audio/video data stream to generate a raw or scaled audio/video data stream and to output the raw or scaled audio/video data stream to the interface bridge.