Gram-Schmidt-based QR decomposition for MIMO detection: VLSI implementation and comparison

The QR decomposition (QRD) is an important prerequisite for many different detection algorithms in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication systems. This paper presents an optimized fixed-point VLSI implementation of the modified Gram-Schmidt (MGS) QRD algorithm that incorporates regularization and additional sorting of the MIMO channel matrix. Integrated in 0.18 mum CMOS technology, the proposed VLSI architecture processes up to 1.56 million complex-valued 4times4-dimensional matrices per second. The implementation results of this work are extensively compared to the Givens rotation (GR)-based QRD implementation of Luethi et al., ISCAS 2007. In order to ensure a fair comparison, both QRD circuits have been integrated in the same IC manufacturing technology, with equal functionality, and the same numeric precision. The comparison of the implementation results clearly showed superiority of the GR-based VLSI solution in terms of area, processing cycles, and throughput.