High-Throughput Architecture for H.264/AVC CABAC Compression System

New image and video coding standards have pushed the limits of compression by introducing new techniques with high computational demands. The Advanced Video Coder (ITU-T H.264, AVC MPEG-4 Part 10) is the last international standard, which introduces new enhanced features that require new levels of performance. Among the new tools present in AVC, the context-based binary arithmetic coder (CABAC) offers significant compression advantage over baseline entropy coders. CABAC is meant to be used in AVC's Main and High Profiles, which target broadcast and video storage and distribution of standard and high-definition contents. In these applications, hardware acceleration is needed as the computational load of CABAC is high, challenging programmable processors. Moreover, rate-distortion optimization (RDO) increases CABAC's load by two orders of magnitude. In this paper, we present a fast and new architecture for arithmetic coding adapted to the characteristics of CABAC, including optimized use of memory and context managing and fast processing able to encode more than two symbols per cycle. A maximum processing speed of 185 MHz has been obtained for 0.35 mu, able to encode high quality video in real time. Some of the proposed optimization may also be applied to software implementations obtaining significant improvements

[1]  Jung-Woo Kim,et al.  Real-time MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 CABAC entropy coder , 2005, 2005 Digest of Technical Papers. International Conference on Consumer Electronics, 2005. ICCE..

[2]  Heiko Schwarz,et al.  Context-based adaptive binary arithmetic coding in the H.264/AVC video compression standard , 2003, IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol..

[3]  David S. Taubman,et al.  Improved throughput arithmetic coder for JPEG2000 , 2004, 2004 International Conference on Image Processing, 2004. ICIP '04..

[4]  Hassan Shojania,et al.  A VLSI architecture for high performance CABAC encoding , 2005, Visual Communications and Image Processing.

[5]  Ian H. Witten,et al.  Arithmetic coding for data compression , 1987, CACM.

[6]  Glen G. Langdon,et al.  An Overview of the Basic Principles of the Q-Coder Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coder , 1988, IBM J. Res. Dev..

[7]  José L. Núñez-Yáñez,et al.  High-performance arithmetic coding VLSI macro for the H264 video compression standard , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics.

[8]  Takao Onoye,et al.  High-speed implementation of JBIG arithmetic coder , 1999, Proceedings of IEEE. IEEE Region 10 Conference. TENCON 99. 'Multimedia Technology for Asia-Pacific Information Infrastructure' (Cat. No.99CH37030).

[9]  Susanto Rahardja,et al.  Fast intermode decision in H.264/AVC video coding , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.

[10]  David S. Taubman,et al.  Realizing Low-Cost High-Throughput General-Purpose Block Encoder for JPEG2000 , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.

[11]  Grzegorz Pastuszak,et al.  A high-performance architecture for embedded block coding in JPEG 2000 , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.

[12]  Gary J. Sullivan,et al.  Rate-constrained coder control and comparison of video coding standards , 2003, IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol..

[13]  Yu-Wei Chang,et al.  High performance two-symbol arithmetic encoder in JPEG 2000 , 2004, IEEE International Symposium on Consumer Electronics, 2004.

[14]  Ajay Luthra,et al.  Overview of the H.264/AVC video coding standard , 2003, IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol..

[15]  Javier D. Bruguera,et al.  Arithmetic coding architecture for H.264/AVC CABAC compression system , 2004, Euromicro Symposium on Digital System Design, 2004. DSD 2004..

[16]  V.A. Chouliaras,et al.  High-performance arithmetic coding VLSI macro for the H.264 video compression standard , 2005, 2005 Digest of Technical Papers. International Conference on Consumer Electronics, 2005. ICCE..

[17]  Susanto Rahardja,et al.  Fast mode decision algorithm for intraprediction in H.264/AVC video coding , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology.