A Low Cost Instruction Set for Bit Stream Process

Most of media compression CODECs adopts the variable length coding method. This paper proposes special registers and instruction set for bit stream process in order to accelerate the decoding process of the variable length code. The instruction set shares the conventional data path to minimize additional costs. And bit stream is read from the memory instead of the special port. Therefore the instruction set minimizes the change of the processor, and is adopted without any additional input controller and buffer, and accelerate decoding process of variable length code. The data path of the instruction set needs additional 65 bits memory and 344 equivalent gates, 0.19 ns delay under TSMC technology. The instruction set reduced the execution time of the variable length code decoding process in H.264/AVC by about 55%.