A Viterbi decoder with low-power trace-back memory structure for wireless pervasive communications

This paper presents a new trace-back memory structure for Viterbi decoders that reduces power consumption by 63% compared to the conventional RAM based design. Instead of the intensive read and write operations as required in RAM based designs, the new memory is based on an array of registers connected with trace-back signals that decode the output bits on the fly. The structure is used together with appropriate clock and power-aware control signals. Based on a 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS implementation the trace-back back memory consumes energy of 182 pJ

A high-speed, low-power interleaved trace-back memory for Viterbi decoder

This paper presents a high-speed, low-power trace-back memory structure for a Viterbi decoder. The new memory is based on an array of registers connected with trace-back signals that decode the output bits on the fly. The trace-back memory is internally interleaved such that high-speed characteristic is achieved while low-power consumption is maintained. The structure is used together with appropriate clock and power-aware control signals. The design is 100% portable and is suitable for a SoftIP approach. Based on the AMS 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS implementation the trace-back memory is estimated to consume energy of 232 pJ, which is 53.6% less than a conventional RAM based design, with a maximum throughput of 1.1 Gbps

A hardware implementation of a Viterbi decoder for a (3,2/3) TCM code

The report details the design of a dedicated Viterbi decoder chip set for an Ungerboek (3,2/3) Trellis Coded Modulation code. It was the specific intention of the thesis to design a system that could be implemented on standard Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) yet still be able to cope with high bit rates. The focus of the research was to both evaluate and modify the existing VLSI design techniques and to develop new techniques to make this possible. Trellis Coded Modulation refers to a specific sub-class of convolutional codes that ire an example of coded modulation. In coded modulation there is a direct link between the encoding and modulation processes aimed at improving the performance of the code by introducing redundancy in the signal set used to transmit the code. Ungerboek developed a technique for mapping the encoded words onto points in the signal set, called mapping by set partitioning, that maximises the Euclidian distance between adjacent codewords, and hence maximises the minimum distance between any two output sequences in the code. The Viterbi algorithm is a maximum likelihood decoder for convolutional codes such as TCM. The operation of the Viterbi algorithm is based on using soft decision decoding to produce an estimate of how well the received sequence corresponds with any of the allowed code sequences. The code sequences which most closely matches the received sequence is then decoded to form the output of the decoder. A central problem in implementing systems using TCM with Viterbi decoding is that although the encoder is a relatively simple device, the decoder is not. The complexity of the Viterbi decoder for any given TCM scheme will be the major drawback in implementing the scheme. As such techniques for reducing the complexity of Viterbi decoders are of interest to developers of communication systems. The algorithms describing the implementation and operation of the Viterbi algorithm can be categorised into three main layers. The top layer holds the theoretical algorithm itself, in the second layer are the set of algorithms that describe the broad techniques used to manipulate the theoretical algorithm into a form in which it can be implemented, and the third layer of algorithms describe the implementations themselves. The work contained in this thesis concentrates on the second two layers of algorithms

Optimization and implementation of a Viterbi decoder under flexibility constraints

This paper discusses the impact of flexibility when designing a Viterbi decoder for both convolutional and TCM codes. Different trade-offs have to be considered in choosing the right architecture for the processing blocks and the resulting hardware penalty is evaluated. We study the impact of symbol quantization that degrades performance and affects the wordlength of the rate-flexible trellis datapath. A radix-2-based architecture for this datapath relaxes the hardware requirements on the branch metric and survivor path blocks substantially. The cost of flexibility in terms of cell area and power consumption is explored by an investigation of synthesized designs that provide different transmission rates. Two designs are fabricated in a digital 0.13- $mu{hbox {m}}$ CMOS process. Based on post-layout simulations, a symbol baud rate of 168 Mbaud/s is achieved in TCM mode, equivalent to a maximum throughput of 840 Mbit/s using a 64-QAM constellation

Modified VLSI designs for error correction codes

Nowadays, error correction codes have become an integral part in almost all the modern digital communication and storage systems. With the continuously increasing demands for higher speed and lower power communication systems, efficient VLSI implementations of those error correction codes have great importance for practical applications. In this thesis, several VLSI design issues for Viterbi decoder and Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes decoder will be discussed. We propose a low-power memory-efficient Viterbi decoder to reduce the memory read operations in the survivor memory unit (SMU) and the memory size of SMU. We develop a parallel Viterbi decoder for high throughput applications. We also propose an efficient early stopping scheme to reduce the number of decoding iterations for LDPC codes decoding

A hardware spinal decoder

Spinal codes are a recently proposed capacity-achieving rateless code. While hardware encoding of spinal codes is straightforward, the design of an efficient, high-speed hardware decoder poses significant challenges. We present the first such decoder. By relaxing data dependencies inherent in the classic M-algorithm decoder, we obtain area and throughput competitive with 3GPP turbo codes as well as greatly reduced latency and complexity. The enabling architectural feature is a novel alpha-beta incremental approximate selection algorithm. We also present a method for obtaining hints which anticipate successful or failed decoding, permitting early termination and/or feedback-driven adaptation of the decoding parameters. We have validated our implementation in FPGA with on-air testing. Provisional hardware synthesis suggests that a near-capacity implementation of spinal codes can achieve a throughput of 12.5 Mbps in a 65 nm technology while using substantially less area than competitive 3GPP turbo code implementations.Irwin Mark Jacobs and Joan Klein Jacobs Presidential FellowshipIntel Corporation (Fellowship)Claude E. Shannon Research Assistantshi