Application Specific Processor Design For H.264 Baseline Profile Bit-Stream Decoding

Bit stream coding plays an important role in image and video compressing standards. This paper presents a H.264 baseline profile bit-stream decoding solution based on application specific processor. The bit-stream decoder hardware is integrated into the RISC processor as a sub-module of its ALU. It can decode one symbol every clock cycle through one instruction, which is 50 times faster than tree-based software solution. The buffer module of the decoder has the ability of automatically maintaining the bit-stream. The design is fabricated in 0.18-mum CMOS process in UMC and can work at 100 MHz. The decoder hardware consists of 32 k transistors