High-Efficiency VLSI Architecture Design for Motion-Estimation in H.264/AVC

Chun-Lung HSU  Mean-Hom HO  

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences   Vol.E90-A   No.12   pp.2818-2825
Publication Date: 2007/12/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1337
DOI: 10.1093/ietfec/e90-a.12.2818
Print ISSN: 0916-8508
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on VLSI Design and CAD Algorithms)
Category: System Level Design
Keyword: 
VLSI,  motion estimation,  VBSD,  H.264/AVC,  

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Summary: 
This paper proposes a flexible VLSI architecture design for motion estimation in H.264/AVC using a high-efficiency variable block-size decision (VBSD) approach. The proposed VBSD approach can perform a full motion search on integrating the 44 block sizes into 48, 84, 88, 816, 168, or 1616 block sizes and then appropriately select the optimal modes for motion compensation operating. In other words, the proposed architecture based on the VBSD approach can effectively reduce the encoding time of the motion estimation by dealing with different block sizes under 1616 searching range. Using the TSMC 0.18-µm CMOS technology, the proposed architecture has been successfully realized. Simulation and verification results show that the proposed architecture has significant bit-rate reduction and small PSNR degradation. Also, the physical chip design revealed that the maximum frame rate of this work can process 704 fps with QCIF (176144), 176 fps with CIF (352288) and 44 fps with 4CIF (704576) video resolutions under lower gate counts and higher working frequency.