Fast algorithms and VLSI architecture design for HEVC intra-mode decision

Abstract The emerging intra-coding tools of High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard can achieve up to 36 % bit-rate reduction compared to H.264/AVC, but with significant complexity increase. The design challenges, such as data dependency and computational complexity, make it difficult to implement a hardware encoder for real-time applications. In this paper, firstly, the data dependency in HEVC intra-mode decision is fully analyzed, which is cost by the reconstruction loop, the Most Probable Mode, the context adaption during Context-based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding based rate estimation, and the Chroma derived mode. Then, several fast algorithms are proposed to remove the data dependency and to reduce the computational complexity, which include source signal based Rough Mode Decision, coarse to fine rough mode search, Prediction Mode Interlaced RDO mode decision, parallelized context adaption and Chroma-free Coding Unit (CU)/Prediction Unit (PU) decision. Finally, the parallelized VLSI architecture with CU reordering and Chroma reordering scheduling is proposed to improve the throughput. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed intra-mode decision achieves 41.6 % complexity reduction with 4.3 % Bjontegaard Delta Rate (BDR) increase on average compared to the reference software, HM-13.0. The intra-mode decision scheme is implemented with 1571.7K gate count in 55 nm CMOS technology. The implementation results show that our design can achieve 1080p@60fps real time processing at 294 MHz operation frequency.