• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.49 no.12
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• pp.201-208
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• 2012

In this paper, the hardware design of rate control for real-time video encoded is proposed. In the proposed method, a quadratic rate distortion model with high-computational complexity is not used when quantization parameter values are being decided. Instead, for low-computational complexity, average complexity weight values of frames are used to calculate QP. For high speed and low computational prediction, the MAD is predicted based on the coded basic unit, using spacial and temporal correlation in sequences. The rate control is designed with the hardware for fast QP decision. In the proposed method, a quadratic rate distortion model with high-computational complexity is not used when quantization parameter values are being decided. Instead, for low-computational complexity, average complexity weight values of frames are used to calculate QP. In addition, the rate control is designed with the hardware for fast QP decision. The execution cycle and gate count of the proposed architecture were reduced about 65% and 85% respectively compared with those of previous architecture. The proposed RC was implemented using Verilog HDL and synthesized with UMC $0.18{\mu}m$ standard cell library. The synthesis result shows that the gate count of the architecture is about 19.1k with 108MHz clock frequency.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.59-67
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• 2013

Reed-Solomon (RS) codes are powerful error-correcting codes used in diverse applications. Recently, algebraic soft-decision decoding algorithm for RS codes that can correct the errors beyond the error correcting bound has been proposed. The algorithm requires very intensive computations for interpolation, therefore an efficient VLSI architecture, which is realizable in hardware with a moderate hardware complexity, is mandatory for various applications. In this paper, we propose an efficient architecture with low hardware complexity for interpolation in soft-decision list decoding of Reed-Solomon codes. The proposed architecture processes the candidate polynomial in such a way that the terms of X degrees are processed in serial and the terms of Y degrees are processed in parallel. The processing order of candidate polynomials adaptively changes to increase the efficiency of memory access for coefficients; this minimizes the internal registers and the number of memory accesses and simplifies the memory structure by combining and storing data in memory. Also, the proposed architecture shows high hardware efficiency, since each module is balanced in terms of latency and the modules are maximally overlapped in schedule. The proposed interpolation architecture for the (255, 239) RS list decoder is designed and synthesized using the DongbuHitek $0.18{\mu}m$ standard cell library, the number of gate counts is 25.1K and the maximum operating frequency is 200 MHz.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.11 s.353
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• pp.26-36
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• 2006

In this paper, we propose a cost-effective color filter may (CFA) demosaicing method for digital still cameras in which a single CCD or CMOS image sensor is used. Since a CFA is adopted, we must interpolate missing color values in the red, green and blue channels at each pixel location. While most state-of-the-art algorithms invest a great deal of computational effort in the enhancement of the reconstructed image to overcome the color artifacts, we focus on eliminating the color artifacts with low computational complexity. Using spatial correlation of the adjacent pixels, the edge-directional information of the neighbor pixels is used for determining the edge direction of the current pixel. We apply our method to the state-of-the-art algorithms which use edge-directed methods to interpolate the missing color channels. The experiment results show that the proposed method enhances the demosaiced image qualify from $0.09{\sim}0.47dB$ in PSNR depending on the basis algorithm by removing most of the color artifacts. The proposed method was implemented and verified successfully using verilog HDL and FPGA. It was synthesized to gate-level circuits using 0.25um CMOS standard cell library. The total logic gate count is 12K, and five line memories are used.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.46 no.7
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• pp.53-60
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• 2009

Motion estimation for H.264/AVC video CODEC is very complex and requires a huge amount of computational efforts because it uses multiple reference frames and variable block sizes. We propose the architecture of high-performance integer-pixel motion estimation circuit based on fast algorithms for multiple reference frame selection, block matching, block mode decision and motion vector estimation. We also propose the architecture of high-performance interpolation circuit for sub-pixel motion estimation. We described the RTL circuit in Verilog HDL and synthesized the gate-level circuit using 130nm standard cell library. The integer-pixel motion estimation circuit consists of 77,600 logic gates and four $32\times8\times32$-bit dual-port SRAM's. It has tile maximum operating frequency of 161MHz and can process up to 51 D1 (720$\times$480) color in go frames per second. The fractional motion estimation circuit consists of 22,478 logic gates. It has the maximum operating frequency of 200MHz and can process up to 69 1080HD (1,920$\times$1,088) color image frames per second.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.55-62
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• 2007

This paper proposes a defective pixel detection algorithm and its hardware structure for CCD/CMOS image sensor. In previous algorithms, the characteristics of image have not been considered. Also, some algorithms need quite a time to detect defective pixels. In order to make up for those disadvantages, the proposed defective pixel detection method detects defective pixels efficiently by considering the edges in the image and verifies them using several frames while checking scene-changes. Whenever scene-change is occurred, potentially defective pixels are checked and confirmed whether it is defective or not. Test results showed that the correct detection rate in a frame was increased 6% and the defective pixel verification time was decreased 60%. The proposed algorithm was implemented with verilog HDL. The edge indicator in color interpolation block was reused. Total logic gate count was 5.4k using 0.25um CMOS standard cell library.

• Journal of Advanced Navigation Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.213-220
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• 2011

In this paper, the channel preprocessor with an area-efficient architecture is proposed for the MIMO symbol detector which can support four transmit and receive antennas. The proposed channel preprocessor can shrink the channel dimension to reduce the hardware complexity of the MIMO symbol detector. Also, the proposed channel preprocessor is implemented with very low complexity by using QR decomposition (QRD) and log-number system (LNS). By applying QRD and LNS to the nulling matrix calculation block, the numbers of matrix-multiplications and matrix-divisions are decreased and thus the complexity of the proposed channel preprocessor is significantly reduced. The proposed channel preprocessor was designed in a hardware description language (HDL) and synthesized to gate-level circuits using 0.13um CMOS standard cell library. With the proposed channel preprocessor, the number of logic gates for channel preprocessor is reduced by 20.2% compared with the conventional architecture.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.103-111
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• 2007

In this paper, we propose a VLSI architecture of hardware optimized high quality image signal processor for a Single-chip CMOS Image Sensor(CIS). The Single-chip CIS is usually used for mobile applications, so it has to be implemented as small as possible while maintaining the image quality. Several image processing algorithms are used in ISP to improve captured image quality. Among the several image processing blocks, demosaicing and image filter are the core blocks in ISP. These blocks need line memories, but the number of line memories is limited in a low cost Single-chip CIS. In our design, high quality edge-adaptive and cross channel correlation considered demosaicing algorithm is adopted. To minimize the number of required line memories for image filter, we share the line memories using the characteristics of demosaicing algorithm which consider the cross correlation. Based on the proposed method, we can achieve both high quality and low hardware complexity with a small number of line memories. The proposed method was implemented and verified successfully using verilog HDL and FPGA. It was synthesized to gate-level circuits using 0.25um CMOS standard cell library. The total logic gate count is 37K, and seven and half line memories are used.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.102-111
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• 2013

In this paper, we proposed a $4{\times}4$ block parallel architecture of interpolation for high-performance H.264/AVC Motion Compensation in 4K UHD($3840{\times}2160$) video real time processing. To improve throughput, we design $4{\times}4$ block parallel interpolation. For supplying the $9{\times}9$ reference data for interpolation, we design 2D cache buffer which consists of the $9{\times}9$ memory arrays. We minimize redundant storage of the reference pixel by applying the Search Area Stripe Reuse scheme(SASR), and implement high-speed plane interpolator with 3-stage pipeline(Horizontal Vertical 1/2 interpolation, Diagonal 1/2 interpolation, 1/4 interpolation). The proposed architecture was simulated in 0.13um standard cell library. The maximum operation frequency is 150MHz. The gate count is 161Kgates. The proposed H.264/AVC Motion Compensation can support 4K UHD at 72 frames per second by running at 150MHz.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.875-878
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• 2015

In this paper, we propose an intra prediction hardware architecture with less processing time, computations and reduced hardware area for a high performance HEVC encoder. The proposed intra prediction hardware architecture uses common operation units to reduce computational complexity and uses $4{\times}4$ block unit to reduce hardware area. In order to reduce operation time, common operation unit uses one operation unit to generate predicted pixels and filtered pixels in all prediction modes. Intra prediction hardware architecture introduces the $4{\times}4$ PU design processing to reduce the hardware area and uses intemal registers to support $32{\times}32$ PU processmg. The proposed hardware architecture uses ten common operation units which can reduce execution cycles of intra prediction. The proposed Intra prediction hardware architecture is designed using Verilog HDL(Hardware Description Language), and has a total of 41.5k gates in TSMC $0.13{\mu}m$ CMOS standard cell library. At 150MHz, it can support 4K UHD video encoding at 30fps in real time, and operates at a maximum of 200MHz.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.431-435
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• 2011

This paper presents optimized searching technique to improve the performance of H.264/AVC. The proposed CAVLC encoder uses forward and backward searching algorithm to compute the parameters. By zero-block skipping technique and pipelined scheduling, the proposed CAVLC encoder can obtain better performance. The experimental result shows that the proposed architecture needs only 66.6 cycles on average for each $16{\times}16$ macroblock encoding. The proposed architecture improves the performance by 13.8% than that of previous designs. The proposed CAVLC encoder was implemented using VerilogHDL and synthesized with Megnachip $0.18{\mu}m$ standard cell library. The synthesis result shows that the gate count is about 15.6K with 125Mhz clock frequency.