METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONVOLUTION ENCODING AND VITERBI DECODING OF DATA THAT UTILIZE A CONFIGURABLE PROCESSOR TO CONFIGURE A PLURALITY OF RE-CONFIGURABLE PROCESSING ELEMENTS

摘要

A method and apparatus for convolution encoding and Viterbi decoding utilizes a flexible, digital signal processing architecture that comprises a core processor and a plurality of re-configurable processing elements arranged in a two-dimensional array. The core processor is operable to configure the re-configurable processing elements to perform data encoding and data decoding functions. A received data input is encoded by configuring one of the re-configurable processing elements to emulate a convolution encoding algorithm and applying the received data input to the convolution encoding algorithm. A received encoded data input is decoded by configuring the plurality of re-configurable processing elements to emulate a Viterbi decoding algorithm wherein the plurality of re-configurable processing elements is configured to accommodate every data state of the convolution encoding algorithm. The core processor initializes the re-configurable processing elements by assigning register values to registers that define parameters such as constraint length and code rate for the convolution encoding algorithm.