A new architecture for fast arithmetic coding in H.264 advanced video coder

In this work, a new architecture for binary arithmetic coding is presented in the context of the new AVC/H.264 standard for video coding. Among the new technologies included in AVC/H.264 a context adaptive binary arithmetic coder (CABAC) is used that outperforms the baseline entropy coder in a significant manner. In this work we justify the need for a new architecture that implements the unique characteristics of CABAC that are not found in other implementations of arithmetic coding. We show that a fast architecture is needed that combines short cycle time and application-aware scheduling in order to accomplish with the high computational demands. A number of optimizations are introduced that allow processing several symbols per cycle and reduce data binarization overhead. Implementation results are shown for a Virtex-II FPGA and the main conclusions are presented.