A 53.3 Mb/s 4x4 16-QAM MIMO Decoder in 0.35um CMOS

In English An ASIC implementation of the K-best Schnorr-Euchner decoder is presented for a 4/spl times/4 16-QAM MIMO system. There are several low complexity and low power features incorporated in the proposed VLSI architecture. The chip is fabricated in a 0.35-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. The chip core area is 5.76 mm/sup 2/ with 91 K gates. Furthermore, the decoding throughput that the chip can support is up to 53.3 Mb/s with a core power consumption of 626 mW at 100 MHz clock frequency and 2.8 V supply. The corresponding decoding latency is 2.4 /spl mu/s.