Implementations and Optimizations of Pipeline FFTs on Xilinx FPGAs

Abstract

This paper presents optimized implementations of two different pipeline FFT processors on Xilinx Spartan-3 and Virtex-E FPGAs. Different optimization techniques and rounding schemes were explored. The implementation results achieved better performance with lower resource usage than prior art. The 16-bit 1024-point FFT with the R22SDF architecture had a maximum clock frequency of 95.2 MHz and used 2802 slices on the Spartan-3, a throughput per area ratio of 0.034 Msamples/s/slice. The R4SDC architecture ran at 123.8 MHz and used 4409 slices on the Spartan-3, a throughput per area ratio of 0.028 Msamples/s/slice. The R22SDF was more efficient than the R4SDC in terms of throughput per area due to a simpler controller and an easier balanced rounding scheme. This paper also shows that balanced stage rounding is an appropriate rounding scheme for pipeline FFT processors.