High-Throughput H.264/AVC High-Profile CABAC Decoder for HDTV Applications

• Published in: IEEE transactions on circuits and systems for video technology 2009-09, Vol.19 (9), p.1395-1399
• Main Authors: YANG, Yao-Chang, GUO, Jiun-In
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Automatic voltage control; Broadcasting. Videocommunications. Audiovisual; Circuit properties; Circuits; Coding; Coding, codes; Context-based adaptive binary arithmatic coding (CABAC); Counting; Decoding; Design engineering; Digital signal processing; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Frames; H.264; HDTV; High definition television; IEC standards; Imaging devices; Information, signal and communications theory; ISO standards; MPEG standards; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Signal and communications theory; Signal convertors; Tables (data); Telecommunications; Telecommunications and information theory; Television; Transform coding; Very large scale integration; Video coding
• ISSN: 1051-8215; 1558-2205
• DOI: 10.1109/TCSVT.2009.2020340

In this letter we propose a high-throughput VLSI architecture design for H.264 high-profile context-based adaptive binary arithmatic coding (HP CABAC) decoding for HDTV applications. To speed up the inherent sequential CABAC decoding, we eliminate the bottleneck by proposing a look-ahead decision parsing technique on the grouped context table with cache registers, which reduces 62% of cycle count on average as compared with the original CABAC decoding. In addition, the proposed design supports the macroblock adaptive frame field coding tools in H.264 main profile coding and 8 times 8 transform in H.264 high-profile coding. It achieves the real-time processing for H.264 CABAC decoding up to L4.1@30 frames/s with maximum 60 Mbits/s when operating at 105 MHz.