This paper presents a novel approach to develop parallel pipelined architectures for the fast Fourier transform (FFT). A formal procedure for designing FFT architectures using folding transformation and register minimization techniques is proposed. Novel parallel-pipelined architectures for the computation of complex and real valued fast Fourier transform are derived. For complex valued Fourier transform (CFFT), the proposed architecture takes advantage of under utilized hardware in the serial architecture to derive L-parallel architectures without increasing the hardware complexity by a factor of L. The operating frequency of the proposed architecture can be decreased which in turn reduces the power consumption. Further, this paper presents new parallel-pipelined architectures for the computation of real-valued fast Fourier transform (RFFT). The proposed architectures exploit redundancy in the computation of FFT samples to reduce the hardware complexity. A comparison is drawn between the proposed designs and the previous architectures. The power consumption can be reduced up to 37% and 50% in 2-parallel CFFT and RFFT architectures, respectively. The output samples are obtained in a scrambled order in the proposed architectures. Circuits to reorder these scrambled output sequences to a desired order are presented.

Pipelined Parallel FFT Architectures via Folding Transformation

In this paper, we present a novel 128/64 point fast Fourier transform (FFT)/ inverse FFT (IFFT) processor for the applications in a multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing based IEEE 802.11n wireless local area network baseband processor. The unfolding mixed-radix multipath delay feedback FFT architecture is proposed to efficiently deal with multiple data sequences. The proposed processor not only supports the operation of FFT/IFFT in 128 points and 64 points but can also provide different throughput rates for 1-4 simultaneous data sequences to meet IEEE 802.11n requirements. Furthermore, less hardware complexity is needed in our design compared with traditional four-parallel approach. The proposed FFT/IFFT processor is designed in a 0.13-mum single-poly and eight-metal CMOS process. The core area is 660times2142 mum2 , including an FFT/IFFT processor and a test module. At the operation clock rate of 40 MHz, our proposed processor can calculate 128-point FFT with four independent data sequences within 3.2 mus meeting IEEE 802.11n standard requirements

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Design of an FFT/IFFT Processor for MIMO OFDM Systems

This brief presents a fast Fourier transform (FFT) processor that provides high throughput rate (T.R.) by applying the eight-data-path pipelined approach for wireless personal area network applications. The hardware costs, including the power consumption and area, increase due to multiple data paths and increased wordlength along stages. To resolve these issues, a novel simplification method to reduce the hardware cost in multiplication units of the multiple-path FFT approach is proposed. A multidata scaling scheme to reduce wordlengths while preserving the signal-to-quantization-noise ratio is also presented. Using UMC 90-nm 1P9M technology, a 2048-point FFT processor test chip has been designed, and its 128-point FFT kernel has been fabricated for ultrawideband (UWB) applications and also for verification. The 2048-point FFT processor can provide a T.R. of 2.4 GS/s at 300 MHz with a power consumption of 159 mW. Compared with the four-data-path approach, a power consumption saving of about 30% can be achieved under the same T.R. In addition, the 128-point FFT kernel test chip has a measured power consumption of 6.8 mW with a T.R. of 409.6 MS/s at 52 MHz to meet the UWB standard with a saving in power consumption of about 40%.

A 2.4-GS/s FFT Processor for OFDM-Based WPAN Applications

Mode coupling is a key to overcoming challenges in mode-division-multiplexed transmission systems in multimode fiber. This chapter provides an in-depth description of mode coupling, including its physical origins, its effect on modal dispersion (MD) and mode-dependent loss or gain (MDL), and the resulting impact on system performance and implementation complexity. Strong mode coupling reduces the group delay spread from MD, minimizing the complexity of digital signal processing used for compensating MD and separating multiplexed signals. Likewise, strong mode coupling reduces the variations of MDL arising from transmission fibers and inline optical amplifiers, maximizing average channel capacity. When combined with MD, strong mode coupling creates frequency diversity, which reduces the probability of outage caused by MDL and enables the outage capacity to approach the average capacity. The statistics of strongly coupled MD and MDL depend only on the number of modes and the variances of MD or MDL, and can be derived from the eigenvalue distributions of certain random matrices.

Mode Coupling and its Impact on Spatially Multiplexed Systems

This paper presents a design methodology for power and area minimization of flexible FFT processors. The methodology is based on the power-area tradeoff space obtained by adjusting algorithm, architecture, and circuit variables. Radix factorization is the main technique for achieving high energy efficiency with flexibility, followed by architecture parallelism and delay line circuits. The flexibility is provided by reconfigurable processing units that support radix-2/4/8/16 factorizations. As a proof of concept, a 128- to 2048-point FFT processor for 3GPP-LTE standard has been implemented in a 65-nm CMOS process. The processor designed for minimum power-area product is integrated in 1.25 × 1.1 mm2 and dissipates 4.05 mW at 0.45 V for the 20 MHz LTE bandwidth. The energy dissipation ranging from 2.5 to 103.7 nJ/FFT for 128 to 2048 points makes it the lowest energy flexible FFT.

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/15606/1/000300577500015.pdf

Power and Area Minimization of Reconfigurable FFT Processors: A 3GPP-LTE Example

In this paper, we present a novel 128-point FFT/IFFT processor for ultrawideband (UWB) systems. The proposed pipelined FFT architecture, called mixed-radix multipath delay feedback (MRMDF), can provide a higher throughput rate by using the multidata-path scheme. Furthermore, the hardware costs of memory and complex multipliers in MRMDF are only 38.9% and 44.8% of those in the known FFT processor by means of the delay feedback and the data scheduling approaches. The high-radix FFT algorithm is also realized in our processor to reduce the number of complex multiplications. A test chip for the UWB system has been designed and fabricated using 0.18-/spl mu/m single-poly and six-metal CMOS process with a core area of 1.76/spl times/1.76 mm/sup 2/, including an FFT/IFFT processor and a test module. The throughput rate of this fabricated FFT processor is up to 1 Gsample/s while it consumes 175 mW. Power dissipation is 77.6 mW when its throughput rate meets UWB standard in which the FFT throughput rate is 409.6 Msample/s.

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A 1-GS/s FFT/IFFT processor for UWB applications

This paper presents an 8192-point FFT processor for DVB-T systems, in which a three-step radix-8 FFT algorithm, a new dynamic scaling approach, and a novel matrix prefetch buffer are exploited. About 64 K bit memory space can be saved in the 8 K point FFT by the proposed dynamic scaling approach. Moreover, with data scheduling and pre-fetched buffering, single-port memory can be adopted without degrading throughput rate. A test chip for 8 K mode DVB-T system has been designed and fabricated using 0.18-/spl mu/m single-poly six-metal CMOS process with core area of 4.84 mm/sup 2/. Power dissipation is about 25.2 mW at 20 MHz.

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Hsuan-Yu Liu

Papers

A 1-GS/s FFT/IFFT processor for UWB applications

A dynamic scaling FFT processor for DVB-T applications