A hybrid pipelined path-searching architecture for multiple communications applications

Many communications applications require similar processing functionality but are implemented independently. In particular, a number of applications (including trellis coding, encryption, and speech recognition) use techniques based on shortest path search algorithms. In this paper, we propose a high-throughput architecture that can search for the shortest path within a graph. The architecture can decode any data encoded with a finite state machine (FSM) or data encrypted in a dynamic trellis code and also serve as a specialized processor for other searching and matching applications. Balance between flexibility and hardware efficiency is achieved by an integrated design of architecture, in-place scheduling, and concurrent algorithms.