A Fast Mode Decision Algorithm and Its Hardware Design for H.264/AVC Intra Prediction

This paper presents an architecture of mode decision algorithm for H.264/AVC intra prediction. In the algorithm design, based on the inherent correlation existing in the spatial prediction modes, a significant computational savings can be achieved. In the hardware design, through efficient sharing of configurable units and parallel executions of different candidate prediction modes, a lower hardware utilization and higher execution speed can be achieved. Synthesis results show that the proposed architecture can process HDTV (1920×1080) video at 60 fps in FPGA platform and maximum frequency achieved is 184.8 MHz.