Fast constant weight codeword to index converter

Constant weight codewords, in which the number of 1´s is constant, are essential to combinatorial computing. For example, it is often useful to generate all subsets of a set with a fixed number of elements. In this paper, we show an efficient circuit that converts a constant weight codeword into a unique index of that codeword. This circuit is a necessary part of a circuit that uses constant weight codewords to transmit data on and off chip. Our circuit is based on the combinatorial number system in which the digits are binomial coefficients (_rⁿ). Experimental results show the efficiency of our design.