A multi-standard reconfigurable Viterbi Decoder using embedded FPGA blocks

This paper presents a Viterbi Decoder (VD) architecture for a reprogrammable data transmission system, implemented using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device. This VD has been conceived as a building block of a Software Defined Radio (SDR) mobile transceiver, reconfigurable on user request and capable to provide agility in choosing between different standards. UMTS and GPRS standards decoding is achieved by choosing different coding rates and constraint lengths, and the possibility to switch, at run time, between them guarantees a high degree of reconfigurability. The architecture has been tested and verified with a Xilinx XC2V2000 FPGA, to provide a generalized co-simulation/co-design testbed. The results show that this decoder can sustain an uncoded data rate of about 2 Mbps, with an area occupation of 45% due to the efficient resource reuse.