(12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,574,272 B2 Gibbs Et Al
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US00757.4272B2 (12) United States Patent (10) Patent No.: US 7,574,272 B2 Gibbs et al. (45) Date of Patent: Aug. 11, 2009 (54) SYSTEMAND METHOD FOR DATA 5,720,037 A * 2/1998 Biliris et al. .................. 725/92 TRANSFER OPTIMIZATION IN A PORTABLE 6,332,175 B1* 12/2001 Birrell et al. ... ... 711 112 6,378,035 B1* 4/2002 Parry et al. ... ... 711,110 AUDIO DEVICE 6,791.481 B2 * 9/2004 Altare et al. .................. 341/55 (76) Inventors: Eric Paul Gibbs, 2918 NW. Esplanade OTHER PUBLICATIONS St., Seattle, WA (US).981 7; Mark GNU.org, Unix Man pp. dd (1), Nov. 1998, http://www.rt.com/man? Edward Phillips, 3028 22" Ave., West, did.1.html. Seattle, WA (US) 98119 Compaq's System Research Center, Personal Jukebox, unknown date, http://research.compaq.com/SRC/pb.* (*) Notice: Subject to any disclaimer, the term of this HanGo Electronics, Personal Jukebox, Feb. 29, 2000, http://web. patent is extended or adjusted under 35 archive.org/web/20000229023013/www.pbox.com/product.htm.* U.S.C. 154(b) by 1333 days. Compaq's System Research Center, Personal Jukebox, google cache date is Dec. 14, 2005, http://research.compaq.com/SRC/pb.* (21) Appl. No.: 09/975,749 * cited by examiner (22) Filed: Oct. 10, 2001 Primary Examiner Daniel R. Sellers (74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Bob Bergstrom; Mike (65) Prior Publication Data Donahue US 20O2/OO45961 A1 Apr. 18, 2002 (57) ABSTRACT Related U.S. Application Data A system and method are disclosed wherein a battery-pow (60) Provisional application No. 60/240,776, filed on Oct. ered portable audio device utilizes a spinning media device 13, 2000. for data storage. To conserve batter power, the motor in the media storage device is not powered unless an actual data (51) Int. Cl. transfer is required. A processor calculates the amount of data G06F 7700 (2006.01) remaining in a data buffer and considers a number of factors, (52) U.S. Cl. ........................................................ 700/94 Such as the type of spinning media storage device, amount of (58) Field of Classification Search .................... 700/94 available buffer space, the type of CODEC used to implement See application file for complete search history. the system, and the type of data to determine when it will be necessary to power up the spinning media storage device and (56) References Cited transfer data to assure that a continuous stream of data is U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS provided to the CODEC. 5,477,511 A * 12/1995 Englehardt ............... 369,25.01 10 Claims, 7 Drawing Sheets to 102 108 CPU DISPLAY f(4 ff0 N- MEMORY INPUT DEVICE 24 2s \ BUFFER 'N STORAGE I/O f30 DEVICE INTERFACE 134 132 A? \ POWER SUPPLY U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 2009 Sheet 1 of 7 US 7,574.272 B2 -lo 102 108 CPU DISPLAY 104 110 INPUT MEMORY DEVICE 114 - 116 124 BUFFER CODEC ? f f8 126 STORAGE I/O f30 DEVICE INTERFACE 132 POWER SUPPLY Fig. 1 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 2009 Sheet 2 of 7 US 7,574.272 B2 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 2009 Sheet 3 of 7 US 7,574.272 B2 182 MOTOR STORAGE / MEDIA 184 MOTOR READ/WRITEL/r' CONTROL HEAD CIRCUIT 188 f92 DATA READ/WRITE BUFFER CIRCUIT 194 I/O HEAD 190 CIRCUIT CONTROL CIRCUIT 196 126 is U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 2009 Sheet 4 of 7 US 7,574.272 B2 2 S 13 14 is is 124 199 Fig. 4 124 Fig. 5 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 2009 Sheet 5 Of 7 US 7,574.272 B2 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 2009 Sheet 6 of 7 US 7,574.272 B2 200 START MOTOR 202 YES READ DATA TO FILL BUFFER 206 STOP MOTOR 210 212 DATA NEEDED? YES CALCULATE QUANTITY OF 220 DATA NEEDED Fig. 10 U.S. Patent Aug. 11, 2009 Sheet 7 of 7 US 7,574,272 B2 YES TRANSFER CALCULATED 226 QUANTITY OF DATA STOP MOTOR 228 230 Fig. 11 US 7,574,272 B2 1. 2 SYSTEMAND METHOD FOR DATA BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS TRANSFER OPTIMIZATION IN A PORTABLE AUDIO DEVICE FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram of an example embodiment of the present invention. CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED FIG. 2 is an exploded view of a device implementing the APPLICATION present invention. FIG. 3 is a functional block diagram of a data storage This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional device used in the implementation of the present invention. Patent Application No. 60/240,776 filed Oct. 13, 2000, where FIGS. 4-9 are diagrams illustrating various buffering tech this provisional application is incorporated herein by refer 10 niques used by an implementation of the present invention. ence in its entirety. FIGS. 10 and 11 together form a flowchart illustrating the operation of the present invention. TECHNICAL FIELD DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 15 The present invention relates generally to portable audio The present invention provides a technique for transferring devices and, more particularly, to a system and method for data from a spinning storage media, Such as a disk drive or optimizing data transfer from a spinning media in a portable micro-drive, in a portable audio device. As is known in the art, audio device. these portable devices are battery powered. The drive motors associated with spinning media storage devices consume sig BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION nificant amounts of electrical power from a limited capacity battery power Supply. To conserve power, the present inven Portable devices have evolved from large cumbersome tion only periodically applies electrical power to the spinning analog tape players to highly miniaturized digital storage media storage device. Because the storage device is only devices. Early portable audio devices were typically in the 25 powered when a data transfer is required, the system must form of analog tape players. Early tape players were large calculate when a transfer is required, activate the storage devices that required significant battery power for satisfac device motor, wait until the motor comes to the proper speed, tory operation. Analog tape players, such as the SONY Walk and read an optimal amount of data from the spinning media manTM, provided a relatively compact device that played a into a storage buffer. As will be discussed in greater detail standard audio cassette, required multiple batteries because below, the quantity of data transferred each time the storage of the power consumption required to drive the motor. media motor is activated may vary from one disk transfer to Although these were popular devices, their large size and the next so as to optimize the actual data transfer. weight were a significant drawback. Similarly, portable disk The present invention is embodied in a system 100, illus players, capable of playing a compact disk (CD) were large trated in the functional block diagram of FIG.1. The system and bulky. Portable CD players are also susceptible to vibra 35 100 includes a central processing unit (CPU) 102 and a tion and require significant circuitry to avoid skipping. memory 104. The CPU 102 may be implemented using a More recently, portable digital devices have been designed device, such as the ARM 7209 from Cirrus Logic or other to eliminate all moving parts. These devices incorporate Solid processor designed for operation as an MP3 player. However, state memory storage technology and utilize digital process those skilled in the art will appreciate that the CPU 102 may ing capabilities, such as data compression, to minimize the 40 be implemented using any convenient processor, such as a storage requirements. A popular music format, known as microprocessor, embedded controller, digital signal proces Motion Pictures Expert Group layer 3 (MPEG-1 layer 3) sor (DSP) or the like. The present invention is not limited by defines a digital music format that plays “near-CD quality” the specific form of the CPU 102. The memory 104 may music from a relatively small digital file as compared to the typically include both random access memory (RAM) and original digital file stored on a CD. Indeed, a music data file 45 read-only memory (ROM). In one embodiment, the ROM using the data structure defined by MPEG-2 layer 3, some portion of the memory 104 may be implemented using a flash times abbreviated as MP3, is approximately one-tenth the program memory or a NAND flash memory. In addition, the size of a comparable data file on a CD. In addition, the solid memory 104 includes a basic input output system (BIOS), state storage used in a typical MP3 player does not include a which contains instructions that allow the CPU 102 to com CD and thus is not susceptible to skipping. Furthermore, the 50 municate with various peripheral devices. solid state format of MP3 does not include a tape, such as In addition, the system 100 includes a display 108. In an required by a cassette player, and thus does not destroy the exemplary embodiment, the display 108 is implemented as a data storage device by "eating the tape. liquid crystal display (LCD) to reduce overall power con Despite these improvements, MP3 players have limited sumption. In one example, the display 108 may be a 240 by Solid state storage capacity. Several different types of 55 160 pixel LCD subsystem, such as may be commercially memory devices, such as flash memory, Smart media, MMC, purchased from a number of vendors. The display 108 may and the like, are used to provide storage. Other types of conveniently provide instructions to the user as well as pro spinning media devices, such as hard disk drives and micro grammable functions that may be context-sensitive.