Low-power 3D graphics processors for mobile terminals

A full 3D graphics pipeline is investigated, and optimizations of graphics architecture are assessed for satisfying the performance requirements and overcoming the limited system resources found in mobile terminals. Two mobile 3D graphics processor architectures, RAMP and DigiAcc, are proposed based on the analysis, and a prototype development platform (REMY) is implemented. REMY includes a software graphics library and simulation environment developed for more flexible realization of mobile 3D graphics. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of mobile 3D graphics with 3.6 Mpolygons/s at 155 mW power consumption for full 3D operation.     

Memoryless Viterbi decoder

The problem of survival memory management of a Viterbi decoder (VD) was solved by introducing a novel pointer implementation for the register exchange method, where a pointer is assigned to each row of memory in the survivor memory unit (SMU). The content of the pointer which points to one row of memory is altered to point to another row of memory, instead of copying the contents of the first row to the second. In this paper, the one-pointer VD is proposed; if the initial state of the convolutional encoder is known, the entire SMU is reduced to only one row. Because the decoded data bits are generated in the required order, even this row of memory is dispensable. Thus, the one-pointer architecture, referred to as memoryless VD (MLVD), reduces the power consumption of a traditional traceback VD by approximately 50%, but has some performance degradation. A prototype of the MLVD with a one third convolutional code rate and a constraint length of nine is mapped into a Xilinx 2V6000 chip, operating at 25 MHz with a decoding throughput of more than 3 Mbps and a latency of two data bits.     

Viterbi decoder without carrier recovery

A novel Viterbi algorithm of low complexity without carrier recovery is proposed. The most important modification is that the decision metric for surviving paths is not the cumulated variable but its amplitude. Simulation results of its application to MDPSK and convolutional code show negligible performance loss     

An effective simplifying scheme for Viterbi decoder

A Viterbi decoding algorithm with a scarce-state transition-type circuit configuration, namely the probability selecting states (PSS) mode decoder, is presented. The algorithm has reduced complexity compared to a conventional Viterbi decoder. It is shown that this method has three advantages over the general Viterbi algorithm: it is suitable to the quick look-in code, it applies the optimum decoding in a PSS-type decoder, and it makes full use of the likelihood concentration property. The bit-error-rate (BER) performance of a r=1/2, k=7 (147,135) code and PSS-type Viterbi decoder approximates the optimum performance of the standard Viterbi decoder and reduces the hardware of the conventional Viterbi decoder to about half     

Modulo-type Viterbi decoder for high-speed digital transmissionsystems

In this letter, we present a module-type Viterbi decoder (VD) which is a combination of module operation and VD at the receiver. We describe design rules by which the module-type VD and the conventional VD have the same functionality regardless of the shape of the folded-module area or the constellation. The module-type VD in conjunction with the Tomlinson-Harashima precoder at the transmitter reduces the system complexity significantly as compared to a conventional VD     

Modified register-exchange Viterbi decoder for low-power wireless communications

In this paper, a new implementation of the Viterbi decoder (VD), based on a modified register-exchange (RE) method, is proposed. Conceptually, the RE method is simpler and faster than the trace-back (TB) method. However, the disadvantage of the RE method is that every bit in the memory must be read and rewritten for each bit of information decoded. The proposed implementation adopts the "pointer" concept: a pointer is assigned to each register. Instead of copying the contents of one register to another, the pointer which points to the first register is altered to point to the second register. Power-dissipation, performance, memory size, and the speed of the survivor sequence management are analyzed for both the TB method, and the proposed RE method. The analysis indicates an average power reduction of 23% for the new VD, compared to the power dissipation of the VD described in the literature for the third generation of wireless applications. The bit-error rate is 10/sup -5/ with a signal-to-noise ratio of approximately 6.3 dB for a continuous, uncontrolled encoded sequence. Moreover, the memory requirements of the new implementation are reduced by half. All the read and write operations in the survivor sequence management are executed at the data rate frequency which increases the maximum frequency.     

A VLSI design for a trace-back Viterbi decoder

A systolic Viterbi decoder for convolutional codes is developed which uses the trace-back method to reduce the amount of data needed to be stored in registers. It is shown that this new algorithm requires a smaller chip size and achieves a faster decoding time than other existing methods     

An artificial neural net Viterbi decoder

The Viterbi algorithm is a maximum likelihood means for decoding convolutional codes and has thus played an important role in applications ranging from satellite communications to cellular telephony. In the past, Viterbi decoders have usually been implemented using digital circuits. The speed of these digital decoders is directly related to the amount of parallelism in the design. As the constraint length of the code increases, parallelism becomes problematic due to the complexity of the decoder. In this paper an artificial neural network (ANN) Viterbi decoder is presented. The ANN decoder is significantly faster than comparable digital-only designs due to its fully parallel architecture. The fully parallel structure is obtained by implementing most of the Viterbi algorithm using analog neurons as opposed to digital circuits. Several modifications to the ANN decoder are considered, including an analog/digital hybrid design that results in an extremely fast and efficient decoder. The ANN decoder requires one-sixth the number of transistors required by the digital decoder. The connection weights of the ANN decoder are either +1 or -1, so weight considerations in the implementation are eliminated. This, together with the design's modularity and local connectivity, makes the ANN Viterbi decoder a natural fit for VLSI implementation. Simulation results are provided to show that the performance of the ANN decoder matches that of an ideal Viterbi decoder     

A new method for Viterbi decoder simulation using importancesampling

Each simulation run simulates a single error event-that is, a subsequence of incorrect trellis branching decisions-and importance sampling is used to emphasize important nontrivial error events. The fundamental principles of the error event simulation method in conjunction with importance sampling are reviewed. The importance sampling background for coded communications systems is discussed in the context of block codes, because it is easier to present the fundamentals of importance sampling without the additional complexities of Viterbi decoding. The details of the error event simulation method for Viterbi decoders and numerical examples that demonstrate this method are presented. These numerical examples involve both hard and soft decision decoding for the ideal additive Gaussian noise channel. The technique is shown to provide markedly improved efficiency     

A reconfigurable, power-efficient adaptive Viterbi decoder

Error-correcting convolutional codes provide a proven mechanism to limit the effects of noise in digital data transmission. Although hardware implementations of decoding algorithms, such as the Viterbi algorithm, have shown good noise tolerance for error-correcting codes, these implementations require an exponential increase in very large scale integration area and power consumption to achieve increased decoding accuracy. To achieve reduced decoder power consumption, we have examined and implemented decoders based on the reduced-complexity adaptive Viterbi algorithm (AVA). Run-time dynamic reconfiguration is performed in response to varying communication channel-noise conditions to match minimized power consumption to required error-correction capabilities. Experimental calculations indicate that the use of dynamic reconfiguration leads to a 69% reduction in decoder power consumption over a nonreconfigurable field-programmable gate array implementation with no loss of decode accuracy.     

Improved Viterbi decoder metrics for two-stage detectors in DS-CDMA

Modified branch metrics are proposed for single-user Viterbi decoders in two-stage detectors for convolutionally-encoded code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems with random spreading sequences. The modifications are based on modeling the residual multiple-access interference (RMAI) after subtractive interference cancellation as conditionally Gaussian with time-dependent variance, where the conditioning is on the time-varying user crosscorrelations. A novel estimate of the variance of the total RMAI is presented, and used in the proposed branch metrics. Significant performance gains are demonstrated over the Euclidean branch metric of the standard Viterbi decoder.     

Reduced state Viterbi decoder for simple partial erasure model

A reduced state Viterbi decoder is introduced for a simple partial erasure model for magnetic recording systems. It is shown that the performance loss of an eight-state decoder is negligible compared to the original 16 state Viterbi decoder. The implementation issues of an eight-state decoder are also addressed     

Design of a power-reduction Viterbi decoder for WLAN applications

In this paper, a 64-state four-bit soft-decision Viterbi decoder with power saving mechanism for high speed wireless local area network applications is presented. Based on path merging and prediction techniques, a survivor memory unit with hierarchical memory design is proposed to reduce memory access operations. It is found that more than 70% memory access can be reduced by taking advantage of locality. Moreover, a low complexity compare-select-add unit is also presented, leading to save 15% area and 14.3% power dissipation as compared to conventional add-compare-select design. A test chip has been designed and implemented in 0.18-/spl mu/m standard CMOS process. The test results show that 30/spl sim/40% power dissipation can be reduced, and the power efficiency reaches 0.75 mW per Mb/s at 6 Mb/s and 1.26 mW per Mb/s at 54 Mb/s as specified in IEEE 802.11a.     

一种维特比译码器的矩阵实现方案

本文针对(2,1,l)卷积码提出一种维特比矩阵译码算法,通过引入整形、合并和动态选择等辅助模块,实现了所有环节的矩阵处理,构建出具有单一结构的并行译码器。由于只需要更改一部分模块的内部参数便可获得不同卷积码译码器,因此非常有利于分析和设计。仿真实验表明,在运算量更少的情况下,矩阵译码器可以取得接近最优的译码性能。     

A Viterbi decoder architecture for a standard-agile and reprogrammable transceiver

This paper presents a Viterbi decoder (VD) architecture for a programmable data transmission system, implemented using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device. This VD has been conceived as a building block of a software defined radio (SDR) mobile transceiver, reconfigurable on request and capable to provide agility in choosing between different standards. UMTS and GPRS Viterbi decoding is achieved by choosing different coding rates and constraint lengths, and the possibility to switch, at run time, between them guarantees a high degree of programmability. The architecture has been tested and verified with a Xilinx XC2V2000 FPGA for providing a generalized co-simulation/co-design testbed. The results show that this decoder can sustain an uncoded data rate of about 2 Mbps, with an area occupancy of 46%, due to the efficient resources reuse.     

数字语音解码器的低功耗设计策略

主要从系统级、算法级、结构级等多个层面综合考虑减少数字语音解码器的功耗.系统级使用双向不交叠时钟技术,在提高耗时长的模块运算频率的同时消除了电路的竞争与冒险;算法级主要使用汇编语言重写和优化原代码,既可以压缩源代码,更能充分挖掘硬件的运算潜力;在结构级,主要利用并行技术,增加协处理器进行并行计算,有效提高运算速度.另外在布局布线时使用全定制集成电路设计技术手工布线,大为减少解码器的芯片面积.     

高速率维特比译码器FPGA设计中参数确定

探讨了高速率维特比译码器的参数确定问题。简要介绍了维特比译码器的基本原理和体系结构,重点讨论了各个单元在不同参数下的对解码器性能的影响。通过参数的优化,缩减路径度量存储器的长度,减少了硬件消耗,并提出了相应的溢出保护电路,提高了译码器的运行速率。     

An optimal circular Viterbi decoder for the bounded distance criterion

We propose a Viterbi-type decoder for tailbiting trellis codes that works by traversing the tailbiting circle somewhat more than once. The traversal is the least possible for any bounded distance Viterbi decoder. Procedures are given that compute this minimum. Unlike previous decoders of the type, the new scheme does not suffer limit cycles or from pseudocodewords. The bit-error rate is compared to that of Bahl-Cocke-Jelinek-Raviv and maximum-likelihood decoding.     

Novel Viterbi decoder VLSI implementation and its performance

An advanced, high-speed, and universal-coding-rate Viterbi decoder VLSI implementation is presented. Two novel circuit design schemes have been proposed: scarce state transition (SST) decoding and direct high-coding-rate convolutional code generation and variable-rate decoding. SST makes it possible to omit the final decision circuit and to reduce the required path memory length without degrading error probability performance. Moreover, the power consumption of the SST Viterbi decoder is significantly reduced when implemented as a CMOS device. These features overcome the speed limits of high-speed and high-coding-gain Viterbi decoder VLSIs in the rate one-half mode imposed by the thermal limitation. The other Viterbi decoding scheme makes it possible to realize a simple and variable coding-rate forward-error-correction circuit by changing only the branch metric calculation ROM tables. By employing these schemes, high-speed (25-Mb/s) and universal-coding-rate Viterbi decoder VLSIs have been developed     

A 500-Mb/s soft-output Viterbi decoder

Two eight-state 7-bit soft-output Viterbi decoders matched to an EPR4 channel and a rate-8/9 convolutional code are implemented in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. The throughput of the decoders is increased through architectural transformation of the add-compare-select recursion, with a small area overhead. The survivor-path decoding logic of a conventional Viterbi decoder register exchange is adapted to detect the two most likely paths. The 4-mm/sup 2/ chip has been verified to decode at 500 Mb/s with 1.8-V supply. These decoders can be used as constituent decoders for Turbo codes in high-performance applications requiring information rates that are very close to the Shannon limit.