Sphere Decoding Algorithm and VLSI Implementation Using Two-Level Search
Tronganh Huynh, Jong-Min Cho, Jinsang Kim, Won‐Kyung Cho · Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea · 2008
In this paper, a novel 2-level-search sphere decoding algorithm for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) detection and its VLSI implementation are presented. The proposed algorithm extends the search space by concurrently performing symbol detection on 2 level of the tree search. Therefore, the possibility of discarding good candidates can be avoided. Simulation results demonstrate the good performance of the proposed algorithm in terms of bit-error-rate (BER). From the proposed algorithm, an efficient very large scale integration (VLSI) architecture which incorporates low-complexity and fixed throughput features is proposed. The proposed architecture supports many modulation techniques such as BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM and 64-QAM. The sorting block, which occupies a large portion of hardware utilization, is shared for different operating modes to reduce the area. The proposed hardware implementation results show the improvement in terms of area and BER performance compared with existing architectures.