Architectural tradeoffs for survivor sequence memory management in Viterbi decoders

In a Viterbi decoder, there are two known memory organization techniques for the storage of survivor sequences from which the decoded information sequence is retrieved, namely, register exchange method and traceback method. This work extends previously known traceback approaches, describes two new traceback algorithms, and compares various traceback methods with each other. Memory size, latency, and implementational complexity of the survivor sequence management are analyzed for both uniprocessor and multiprocessor realizations of Viterbi decoders. A new, one-pointer traceback method is shown to be better than previously known traceback methods. >