A Full-Pipelined Architecture of the Schnorr-Euchner MIMO Sphere Decoder

Abstract

Multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) is an important approach in high-rate wireless communications. The Schnorr-Euchner (SE) sphere-decoding algorithm enables fast detection for receivers by recursive tree searching with optimized expanding order. In this paper, we propose a looped-pipeline architecture for an SE MIMO detector that processes multiple groups of data in parallel. The full-pipelined design has a short critical path that provides a maximum working frequency of 229 MHz on FPGA. High throughput is achieved at a relatively low cost.KeywordsMIMOSchnorr-Euchner Sphere DetectionFPGAPipeline