A Computational Memory Architecture for MPEG-4 Applications with Mobile Devices

This paper presents a Computational Memory architecture for MPEG-4 applications with mobile devices. The proposed architecture is used for real-time block-based motion estimation, which is the most computational intensive task in the video encoder. It uses the exhaustive block-matching algorithm (EBMA) for motion estimation. The proposed architecture consists of embedded SRAMs and a number of block-matching units working in parallel to process video data while stored in the memory. The block-matching units access the embedded SRAMs simultaneously, which increases the speed of the architecture. The architecture processes CIF format video sequences (i.e., the frame size is 352 × 288 pixels) with block size of 16 × 16 pixels and ±15 pixels search range. The proposed architecture has been designed, prototyped, and simulated for 0.18 μm TSMC CMOS technology. The simulation shows that the proposed architectures processes up to 126 CIF frames per second with clock frequency 100 MHz. The synthesized prototype of the proposed architecture includes 200 KB memory and it has an area of 33.75 mm² and consumes 986.96 mW @100 MHz. Mohammed Sayed received his B.Sc. degree from Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt, in 1997 and a postgraduate diploma in VLSI design from the Information Technology Institute (ITI), Cairo, Egypt, in 1998. In 2003 he received his M.Sc. degree from University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada. From 1998 to 2001 he was a research and teaching assistant at the Electronics & Communications Engineering Department, Zagazig University, Egypt. In 2001 he became a research assistant at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada. His current research interests are System-on-Chip, Embedded Memories, and Digital Video Processing. Mr. Sayed received a number of scholarships and awards such as iCORE Scholarship from 2003 to 2005, SMC Industrial Collaboration Award in June 2003, and the Micronet Annual Workshop Best Paper Award in April 2002. He has a number of journal and conference publications and a number of contributions to the MPEG-4 standard (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11 MPEG2002/ M8562 and M8563). Wael Badawy is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He holds an adjunct professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta. Dr. Badawy's research interests are in the areas of: Microelectronics, VLSI architectures for video applications with low-bit rate applications, digital video processing, low power design methodologies, and VLSI prototyping. His research involves designing new models, techniques, algorithms, architectures and low power prototype for novel system and consumer products. Dr. Badawy authored and co-authored more than 100 peer reviewed Journal and Conference papers and about 30 technical reports. He is the Guest Editor for the special issue on System on Chip for Real-Time Applications in the Canadian Journal on Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Technical Chair for the 2002 International Workshop on SoC for real-time applications, and a technical reviewer in several IEEE journals and conferences. He is currently a member of the IEEE-CAS Technical Committee on Communication. Dr. Badawy was honored with the “2002 Petro Canada Young Innovator Award”, “2001 Micralyne Microsystems Design Award” and the 1998 Upsilon Pi Epsilon Honor Society and IEEE Computer Society Award for Academic Excellence in Computer Disciplines. He is currently the Chairman of the Canadian Advisor Committee (CAC) and Head of the Canadian Delegation on ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC6 “Telecommunications and Information Exchange Between Systems”. Member, The Canadian Advisory Committee for the Standards Council of Canada—Subcommittee 29: Coding of Audio, Picture Multimedia and Hypermedia Information, and Canadian Delegate, The ISO/IEC MPEG standard committee. He is a voting Member on the VSI Alliance. He is also the Chair of the IEEE-Southern Alberta Society-Computer Chapter.