In this paper we formalize a novel multirate folding transformation which is a tool used to systematically synthesize control circuits for pipelined VLSI architectures which implement multirate algorithms. Although multirate algorithms contain decimators and expanders which change the effective sample rate of a discrete-time signal, multirate folding time-multiplexes the multirate algorithm to hardware in such a manner that the resulting synchronous architecture requires only a single-clock signal. Multirate folding equations are derived and these equations are used to address two related issues. The first issue is memory requirements in folded architectures. We derive expressions for the minimum number of registers required by a folded architecture which implements a multirate algorithm. The second issue is retiming. Based on the noble identities of multirate signal processing, we derive retiming for folding constraints which indicate how a multirate data-flow graph must be retimed for a given schedule to be feasible. The techniques introduced in this paper can be used to synthesize architectures for a wide variety of digital signal processing applications which are based on multirate algorithms, such as signal analysis and coding based on subband decompositions and wavelet transforms.
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