Implementation of H.264 Fractional Motion Estimation using full search algorithm

This paper proposes a Fractional Motion Estimation(FME) unit for H.264/AVC video codec standard. The proposed FME unit uses full-search algorithm. The FME unit consists of interpolation unit, comparator unit, metadata processing unit, Current Block(CB) buffer, and Reference Block(RB) SRAM address generator. The FME unit processes 30 QCIF frames in a second at 150MHz. The FME unit is a part of Motion Estimation(ME) unit. ME unit uses 2 stage pipeline. One is Integer Motion Estimation(IME) unit and the other is FME unit. The IME and FME unit share RB SRAM. It takes about 3000~9000 cycles for IME unit to process one MacroBlock(MB) and about 2500 cycle for FME unit to process one MB. There is no bubble in ME pipeline architecture.