A Design Technique for Two-Dimensional Multiplierless FIR Filters for Video Applications

In this paper we consider the design of two-dimensional FIR filters. In order to eliminate multipliers in the hardware implementation, the peculiarity of these filters is that the coefficients are given by the sum or difference of two power-of-two terms. For a minimax criterion, a global optimization procedure known as simulated annealing has been used to determine the coefficients. Significant improvement in the filter performance is gained over methods that simply round the infinite precision solution. The algorithm also allows us to find the maximum value of the coefficient wordlength, beyond which filter performance does not improve. A number of design cases concerning typical video specs, such as deinterlacing filters and luminance/chrominance separation filters, are reported. The method proves to be very effective, yet within the limited dimensions of the filters used in current industrial applications; hence it qualifies as a powerful device to exploit the degrees of freedom of the higher dimensions filters expected with the fostered memory technology advancements.