Over-the-air (OTA) updating of partially compressed firmware

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11416236-B2
Application number	US-201816028321-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 5, 2018
Priority date	Jul 7, 2017
Publication date	Aug 16, 2022
Grant date	Aug 16, 2022

Abstract

Embodiments of the present disclosure include systems and methods for efficient over-the-air updating of firmware having compressed and uncompressed segments. The method includes receiving a first update to the firmware via a radio, wherein the first update includes a first uncompressed segment and a first compressed segment, receiving a second update to the firmware, wherein the second update corresponds to the first compressed segment, compressing the second update to generate a compressed second update, applying the first update to the firmware, and applying the compressed second update to the firmware to generate an updated firmware.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computing device comprising a processor, a memory, and a radio transceiver, wherein:
the memory is adapted to store a baseline firmware comprising:
a first baseline uncompressed segment; and
a first baseline compressed segment having a first size;

the processor is adapted to:
receive a first delta file for the baseline firmware;
receive a second delta file for the first baseline compressed segment;
apply the first delta file to the baseline firmware to generate an intermediate firmware comprising:
a first updated uncompressed segment; and
a first intermediate compressed segment having a second size, wherein:
the first intermediate compressed segment is different from the first baseline compressed segment; and
the second size is different from the first size;

apply the second delta file to an uncompressed baseline precursor segment corresponding to the first baseline compressed segment to generate a first updated compressed segment having the second size; and

replace the first intermediate compressed segment in the intermediate firmware with the first updated compressed segment to generate an updated firmware.

2. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is adapted to apply the second delta file to an uncompressed precursor segment to generate a first updated compressed segment by:
applying the second delta file to the uncompressed baseline precursor segment to generate an uncompressed updated precursor segment; and
compressing the uncompressed updated precursor segment to generate the first updated compressed segment.

3. The computing device of claim 2 , wherein the processor is adapted to dynamically generate the uncompressed baseline precursor segment by decompressing the first baseline compressed segment.

4. The computing device of claim 2 , wherein the uncompressed baseline precursor segment is retrieved from the memory.

5. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the first intermediate compressed segment is a subsection of the first baseline compressed segment.

6. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the first intermediate compressed segment comprises the first baseline compressed segment and padding bits.

7. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the first and second delta files are received via the radio transceiver.

8. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the processor is adapted to:
receive a third delta file for a second baseline compressed segment;
apply the third delta file to the second baseline compressed segment to generate a second updated compressed segment; and
replace a second intermediate compressed segment in the intermediate firmware with the second updated compressed segment to generate the updated firmware.

9. The computing device of claim 1 , wherein the size of the first intermediate compressed segment is the same as the size of the first updated compressed segment.

10. A method for a computing device comprising a processor, a memory, and a radio transceiver, the method comprising:
storing, in the memory, a baseline firmware comprising:
a first baseline uncompressed segment; and
a first baseline compressed segment having a first size;

receiving a first delta file for the baseline firmware;
receiving a second delta file for the first baseline compressed segment;
applying the first delta file to the baseline firmware to generate an intermediate firmware comprising:
a first updated uncompressed segment; and
a first intermediate compressed segment having a second size, wherein:
the first intermediate compressed segment is different from the first baseline compressed segment; and
the second size is different from the first size;

applying the second delta to an uncompressed baseline precursor segment corresponding to the first baseline compressed segment to generate a first updated compressed segment having the second size; and
replacing the first intermediate compressed segment in the intermediate firmware with the first updated compressed segment to generate an updated firmware.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein applying the second delta to an uncompressed precursor segment to generate a first updated compressed segment comprises:
applying the second delta file to the uncompressed baseline precursor segment to generate an uncompressed updated precursor segment; and
compressing the uncompressed updated precursor segment to generate the first updated compressed segment.

12. The method of claim 11 , comprising dynamically generating the uncompressed baseline precursor segment by decompressing the first baseline compressed segment.

13. The method of claim 11 , comprising retrieving the uncompressed baseline precursor segment from the memory.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the first intermediate compressed segment is a subsection of the first baseline compressed segment.

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the first intermediate compressed segment comprises the first baseline compressed segment and padding bits.

16. The method of claim 10 , wherein the first and second delta files are received via the radio transceiver.

17. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
receiving a third delta file for a second baseline compressed segment;
applying the third delta file to the second baseline compressed segment to generate a second updated compressed segment; and
replacing a second intermediate compressed segment in the intermediate firmware with the second updated compressed segment to generate the updated firmware.

18. The method of claim 10 , wherein the size of the first intermediate compressed segment is the same as the size of the first updated compressed segment.

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Geng Nieyan
• Chhabra Gurvinder Singh
• Liu Chenyang
• He Chuguang

Classifications

• G06F8/654

  using techniques specially adapted for alterable solid state memories, e.g. for EEPROM or flash memories · CPC title

• G06F8/658

  Incremental updates; Differential updates · CPC title

• H04L69/04

  Protocols for data compression, e.g. ROHC · CPC title

• H04L67/34

  involving the movement of software or configuration parameters  (network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416) · CPC title

• H03M7/30 Primary

  Compression (speech analysis-synthesis for redundancy reduction G10L19/00; for image communication H04N); Expansion; Suppression of unnecessary data, e.g. redundancy reduction · CPC title