A high-performance VLSI architecture for reconfigurable FIR using distributed arithmetic

Abstract

In this paper, we have analyzed the register complexity of direct-form and transpose-form structures of FIR filter and explored the possibility of register reuse. We find that direct-form structure involves significantly less registers than the transpose-form structure, and it allows register reuse in parallel implementation. We analyze further the LUT consumption and other resources of DA-based parallel FIR filter structures, and find that the input delay unit, coefficient storage unit and partial product generation unit are also shared besides LUT words when multiple filter outputs are computed in parallel. Based on these finding, we propose a design approach, and used that to derive a DA-based architecture for reconfigurable block-based FIR filter, which is scalable for larger block-sizes and higher filter-lengths. Interestingly, the number of registers of the proposed structure does not increase proportionately with the block-size. This is a major advantage for area-delay and energy efficient high-throughput implementation of reconfigurable FIR filters of higher block-sizes. Theoretical comparison shows that the proposed structure for block-size 8 and filter-length 64 involves 60% more flip-flops, 6.2 times more adders, 3.5 times more AND-OR gates, and offers 8 times higher throughput. ASIC synthesis result shows that the proposed structure for block-size 8 and filter-length 64 involves 1.8 times less area-delay product (ADP) and energy per sample (EPS) than the existing design, and it can support 8 times higher throughput. The proposed structure for block sizes 4 and 8, respectively, consumes 38% and 50% less power than the exiting structure for the same throughput rates on average for different supply voltages.