A 212 MPixels/s 4096 x 2160p Multiview Video Encoder Chip for 3D/Quad Full HDTV Applications

Multiview video coding (MVC) plays an important role in a 3-D video system. In addition, the resolution of HDTV is increasing to present more vivid perception for users. To realize real-time processing of dozens of TOPS, VLSI solution is necessary. However, ultra high computational complexity, a large amount of external memory bandwidth and on-chip SRAM size, and complex MVC prediction structures are three main design challenges of implementation of MVC hardware architecture. In this paper, an MVC single-chip encoder is proposed for H.264/AVC Multiview High Profile and High Profile for 3-D and quad full high definition (QFHD) TV applications, respectively. The 4096 x 2160p multiview video encoder chip is implemented on a 11.46 mm(2) die with 90 nm CMOS technology. An eight-stage macroblock pipelined architecture with proposed system scheduling and cache-based prediction core supports real-time processing from one-view 4096 x 2160p to seven-view 720p videos. The 212 Mpixels/s throughput is 3.4 to 7.7 times higher than previous work. The 407 Mpixels/W power efficiency is achieved, and 94% on-chip SRAM size and 79% external memory bandwidth are saved by the proposed techniques.