FPGA implementation of a re-configurable fft for multi-standard systems in software radio context

Abstract

This study is focused on the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementation of a re-configurable Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) operator able to provide Fourier transforms both over complex infinite field X and Galois finite Field GF. This new re-configurable FFT exploits to a great advantage the possibility to share hardware resources when considering multi-standard scenarios for software radio systems. A re-configurable FFT of length N = 256 has been implemented on FPGA. It achieves a performance-to-cost ratio gain from 24% to 9.4% compared to the basic duplicated solution for which no re-configuration is considered. The proposed technology is strongly connected to further consumer handheld devices such as mobile phones intended to support several standards (digital television, mobile communications, wireless local area network etc) where FFT is involved.