Efficient computing methods for parallel processing: An implementation of the Viterbi algorithm

Efficient computing methods are exploited for parallel processing of the most important trellis search algorithm, i.e. the Viterbi decoding algorithm (VA). The complicated data transfer scheme and the rather time-consuming computations caused by dynamic trellis search procedures are reorganized into matrix operations. The well-developed systolic processors for matrix operations can be well adapted to implement the whole decoding procedures of VA. A certain amount of AND/EOR operations for maximum likelihood estimation are saved. Flexible time/area performances are provided and T times speedup can be obtained with T consecutive stages being parallelized.