Hardware-Accelerated Protocol Conversion in an Automotive Gateway Controller

1 . A gateway comprising:

multiple different communication interfaces comprising:

a protocol A interface;

a protocol B interface;

buffer circuitry coupled to the protocol A interface and configured to receive a message on the protocol A interface, the message comprising:

a message identifier; and

a message payload;

a translation table for a destination network interface, the translation table comprising a mapping from the message identifier to a pre-defined protocol B header for that message identifier; and

control circuitry configured to:

receive the pre-defined protocol B header;

receive the message payload;

prepare a protocol B message comprising the pre-defined protocol B header and the message payload; and

transmit the protocol B message through the protocol B interface.

2 . The gateway of claim 1 , further comprising:

a message filter configured to pass the message for processing to the control circuitry, when the message meets a filtering criterion.

3 . The gateway of claim 1 , further comprising:

routing circuitry configured to determine the destination network interface for the message.

4 . The gateway of claim 1 , where:

the translation table comprises a pointer to the pre-defined protocol B header.

5 . The gateway of claim 1 , where:

the translation table comprises an index input configured to receive the message identifier for locating the pre-defined protocol B header.

6 . The gateway of claim 1 , further comprising:

hash circuitry configured to generate an index into the translation table from the message identifier.

7 . The gateway of claim 6 , where:

the translation table is configured to identify the pre-defined protocol B header in response to the index obtained from the message identifier.

8 . The gateway of claim 1 , where:

the control circuitry is configured to aggregate the message payload with additional subsequently received message payloads into the protocol B message.

9 . The gateway of claim 8 , where:

the control circuitry is further configured to aggregate until a transmission criterion is satisfied.

10 . The gateway of claim 1 , where the control circuitry is further configured to read a configuration setting and selectively bypass a hardware acceleration option as specified by the configuration setting.

11 . A method comprising:

in a network gateway:

receiving a message on a protocol A interface, the message comprising a message identifier and a message payload;

determining to perform a translation of the message for transmission through a protocol B interface, where protocol A and protocol B are different communication protocols;

determining whether to apply hardware acceleration to the translation, and when applying the hardware acceleration:

routing the message to determine the protocol B interface for sending the message payload;

performing a lookup in a translation table for the protocol B interface based on the message identifier to identify a pre-defined protocol B header for that message identifier; and

receiving the pre-defined protocol B header;

receiving the message payload;

preparing a protocol B message comprising the pre-defined protocol B header and the message payload; and

transmitting the protocol B message through the protocol B interface.

12 . The method of claim 11 where determining to perform a translation comprises:

applying a filter to the message, the filter configured to pass only those messages that meet a filtering criterion.

13 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

when it is determined to not apply the hardware acceleration, submitting the message to a software protocol stack for processing.

14 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

defining a mapping in the translation table from an index to pre-defined protocol B headers.

15 . The method of claim 14 , where the index comprises the message identifier obtained from the message.

16 . The method of claim 14 , where the mapping points to a protocol B header pre-defined for the message identifier.

17 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

aggregating the message payload with additional subsequently received message payloads into the protocol B message for increased utilization of the protocol B interface compared to sending individual messages.

18 . The method of claim 17 , further comprising:

continuing the aggregating until an aggregation timer expires.

19 . A system comprising:

multiple different communication interfaces comprising:

a protocol A bus interface;

an Ethernet protocol network interface;

buffer circuitry coupled to the protocol A bus interface and configured to receive messages on the protocol A bus interface, the messages each comprising:

a message identifier; and

a message payload;

a message filter configured to determine:

which of the messages to pass for hardware-accelerated protocol translation;

which of the messages to discard; and

which of the messages to submit to a software protocol stack for handling;

a translation table comprising:

an index input configured to receive an a table index value; and

for each value of the index input, a pointer to a pre-defined Ethernet header;

control circuitry configured to:

receive a particular message passed by the message filter;

obtain a particular Ethernet header for the particular message through the translation table;

generate an Ethernet packet comprising the particular Ethernet header and data payload of the particular message; and

transmit the Ethernet packet through the Ethernet protocol network interface.

20 . The system of claim 19 , where:

the control circuitry is further configured to aggregate the message payload with additional subsequently received message payloads into the Ethernet packet until an aggregation criterion is reached.