ARCHITECTURAL TRADEOFFS FOR SURVIVOR SEQUENCE MEMORY MANAGEMENT IN VITERBI DECODERS

In a Viterbi decoder, there are two known memory organization techniqu es for the storage of survivor sequences from which the decoded inform ation sequence is retrieved, namely register exchange method and trace back method. This paper extends previously known traceback approaches describes two new traceback algorithms, and compares various traceback methods with each other. Memory size, latency and implementational co mplexity of the survivor sequence management are analyzed for both uni processor and multiprocessor realizations of Viterbi decoders. A new o ne-pointer traceback method is shown to be better than other known tra ceback methods.