Signal Processing with High Complexity: Prototyping and Industrial Design

Some modern applications require an extraordinary large amount of complexity in signal processing algorithms. For example, the 3rd generation of wireless cellular systems is expected to require 1000 times more complexity when compared to its 2nd generation predecessors, and future 3GPP standards will aim for even more number-crunching applications. Video and multimedia applications do not only drive the complexity to new peaks in wired and wireless systems but also in personal and home devices. Also in acoustics, modern hearing aids, or algorithms for derever-beration of rooms, blind source separation and multichan-nel echo cancellation are complexity hungry. At the same time the anticipated products also put on additional constraints like size and power consumption when mobile and thus battery powered. Furthermore, due to new developments in electro-acoustic transducer design, it is possible to design very small and effective loudspeakers. Unfortunately , the linearity assumption does not hold any more for this kind of loudspeakers, leading to computationally demanding nonlinear cancellation and equalization algorithms. Since standard design techniques would either consume too much time or not result in solutions satisfying all constraints , more efficient development techniques are required to speed up this crucial phase. In general such developments are rather expensive due to the required extraordinary high complexity. Thus, de-risking of a future product based on rapid prototyping is often an alternative approach. However , since prototyping would delay the development, it often makes only sense when it is well embedded in the product design process. Rapid prototyping has thus evolved by applying new design techniques more suitable to support a quick time to market requirement. This special issue focuses on new development methods for applications with high complexity in signal processing and on showing the improved design obtained by such methods. Examples of such methods are virtual prototyp-ing, HW/SW partitioning, automatic design flows, float to fix conversions, and automatic testing and verification. We received seven submissions of which only four were accepted. In Rapid industrial prototyping and SoC design of 3G/4G wireless systems using an HLS methodology the authors Yuan-bin Guo et al. present their industrial rapid prototyping experiences on 3G/4G wireless systems using advanced signal processing algorithms in MIMO-CDMA and MIMO-OFDM systems. Advanced receiver algorithms suitable for implementation are proposed for synchronization, MIMO equalization , and detection, VLSI-oriented complexity reduction is presented. This design experience demonstrates that it is possible to enable an extensive architectural analysis in a short …

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