Algebraic survivor memory management design for Viterbi detectors

The problem of survivor memory management of a Viterbi detector is classically solved either by a register-exchange implementation which has minimal latency, but large hardware complexity and power consumption, or by a trace-back scheme with small power consumption, but larger latency. Here an algebraic formulation of the survivor memory management is introduced which provides a framework for the derivation of new algorithmic and architectural solutions. This allows for solutions to be designed with greatly reduced latency and/or complexity, as well as for achieving tradeoff between latency and complexity. VLSI case studies of specific new solutions have shown that at minimal latency more than 50% savings are possible in hardware complexity as well as power consumption