A 1.2 mW video-rate 2-D color subband decoder

A 2-D subband decoder has been designed for real-time video decompression in low-power applications. The chip is capable of reconstructing four levels of hierarchical subband structures for images up to 256 pixels wide. The chip's maximum performance decodes 60 M pixels per second of color RGB video output with a 5 V supply and 120 MHz clock frequency. For portable applications with a resolution of 176 pixels wide, 240 lines, and 30 frames/s color video, the chip dissipates less than 1.2 mW with a 1 V supply. Besides the reduced supply voltage, the low power consumption is achieved through algorithmic innovations for energy conservation. Higher-resolution images can be decoded by cascading multiple chips in parallel each operating on a 256 pixel wide image slice.