Efficient implementation of the DCT-based video compression on custom computers

Custom computers are a new computing paradigm where reconfigurable logic in the form of SRAM-based Field Programmable Gate Arrays are used as a co-processor resource in addition to a conventional CPU. This allows application developers to adapt not only the software but also the hardware of the computer on an application-by-application basis. The design of arithmetic circuits for FPGA-based custom computers is investigated, and it is demonstrated that Look-Up Table based arithmetic circuits can provide significant performance benefits compared to conventional arithmetic. Experimental evaluation of computational speed for 2-D Discrete Cosine Transforms of 8x8 pixels blocks within a 512x512 pixel image show that a custom computer can provide speedups of 50-100 times compared to state-of-the art computer workstations.