適用於HEVC之270MHz 4Kx2K@60fps整數像素移動估測設計

Motion estimation (ME) processing is the most complex part and the bottle neck of a real time video encoder due to its heavy complexity, and large memory bandwidth, especially for the latest video coding standard, High Efficient Video Coding (HEVC), due to its recursive coding structure, larger prediction unit (PU) size, and advanced motion vector predictors (AMVP). To meet real time demands, this thesis presents an efficient VLSI ME implementation. This design first skips non-square size AMVP for PU size larger than 16×16 and then adopts a 5-step predictive EPZS (Enhanced Predictive Zonal Search) algorithm only for PU size 16×16, 16×8, 8×16, and 8×8 to reduce the search points significantly by 78.1% while maintain the coding performance. The architecture design uses interlaced AMVP and predictive EPZS scheduling for different PU size and the 16×16 PU based partial AMVP computation for PU size larger than 16×16 to maximize hardware utilization and overcome the data dependency problem. To maximize data reuse while keep design simple for such fast algorithm, the proposed design uses separated 8-way set associative cache based search buffers for AMVP and predictive EPZS with reduced tag address indexing. The simulation result illustrates the BDrate performance drop by 1.3%, 1.4%, and 1.6% for Y, U, and V component separately, when compared to HEVC reference software HM 6.0. The presented design with 90 nm CMOS process costs 279K logic gates and 8K bytes of on-chip memory and is capable of processing 4Kx2K 60fps video when running at 270 MHz.