Reconfigurable hardware for efficient implementation of programmable FIR filters

We present the architecture of a programmable FIR filter for use in DSP and communication applications. A filter with this architecture is capable of running a wide variety of single-rate and multirate filtering algorithms with low latency. Flexibility is achieved by distributed register files that store input data and filter coefficients. The functionality of the filter is programmed by a set of pipelined control signals that are independent of the filter length. We demonstrate how to generate these control signals for a variety of configurations. In addition to its flexibility, the architecture is scalable, modular, and has no broadcast signals, making it ideally suited for VLSI implementations.