Low-Complexity Switch Network for Reconfigurable LDPC Decoders

In this paper, we propose an efficient low-complexity switch network design for reconfigurable low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoders. The proposed architecture leads to significant reductions in hardware complexity. Since the structured quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC codes for most modern wireless communication systems include multiple code rates, various block lengths, and different sizes of submatrices, a reconfigurable LDPC decoder is desirable and the barrel shifter needs to be programmable. The Benes network cannot be optimized as the barrel shifter for a reconfigurable LDPC decoder when the input size of barrel shifter is not a power of 2. Also, it is not trivial to generate all the control signals on-the-fly for numerous 2 x 2 switches in the switch network. In this paper, a novel low-complexity switch network design is proposed, which can be used efficiently when the input size of barrel shifters is not a power of 2. Furthermore, we propose a novel algorithm to generate all the control signals, which can be implemented with a small size of lookup table (LUT) or a simple combination logic on-the-fly, using the properties that both the full-size switch network can be broken into two half-size switch networks and the barrel shifters for the structured QC LDPC decoders require only cyclic shifts. Compared with conventional Benes networks using a dedicated LUT or a complicated signal generating algorithm, the proposed architectures achieve significant hardware reductions in implementing the barrel shifters for reconfigurable LDPC decoders. In synthesis result using the TSMC 0.18-mu m standard cell CMOS technology, the proposed switch network for a reconfigurable LDPC decoder of IEEE 802.16e and IEEE 802.11n can be implemented with an area of 0.772 mm(2), which leads to a significant area reduction.