A 354 Mb/s 0.37 mm2 151 mW 32-User 256-QAM Near-MAP Soft-Input Soft-Output Massive MU-MIMO Data Detector in 28nm CMOS

This letter presents a novel data detector application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for massive multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) wireless systems. The ASIC implements a modified version of the large-MIMO approximate message passing algorithm (LAMA), which achieves near-optimal error-rate performance (i) under realistic channel conditions and (ii) for systems with as many users as base-station (BS) antennas. The hardware architecture supports 32 users transmitting up to 256-QAM simultaneously and in the same frequency band, and provides soft-input soft-output capabilities for iterative detection and decoding. The fabricated 28nm CMOS ASIC occupies 0.37 mm
²
, achieves a throughput of 354 Mb/s, consumes 151 mW, and improves the SNR by more than 11 dB compared to existing data detectors in systems with 32 BS antennas and 32 users for realistic wireless channels. In addition, the ASIC achieves $4\boldsymbol \times $ higher throughput per area than a recently proposed message-passing detector.