Selective spanning with fast enumeration detector implementation reaching LTE requirements

We present a hardware implementations of the selective spanning with fast enumeration (SSFE) detection algorithm for a spatial multiplexing multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. We compare the results to a corresponding implementation of well known K-best list sphere detection algorithm in a 3G long term evolution (LTE) system. We show that due to many favorable properties of the SSFE algorithm, the ASIC design achieves in 2 × 2 antenna system up to 210 Mbps decoding rate with 66k gate equivalents (GE) and in 4×4 antenna case up to 420 Mbps with 254 kGE.