Energy-efficient memory hierarchy for motion and disparity estimation in multiview video coding

This work presents an energy-efficient memory hierarchy for Motion and Disparity Estimation on Multiview Video Coding employing a Reference Frames-Centered Data Reuse (RCDR) scheme. In RCDR the reference search window becomes the center of the motion/disparity estimation processing flow and calls for processing all blocks requesting its data. By doing so, RCDR avoids multiple search window retransmissions leading to reduced number of external memory accesses, thus memory energy reduction. To deal with out-of-order processing and further reduce external memory traffic, a statistics-based partial results compressor is developed. The on-chip video memory energy is reduced by employing a statistical power gating scheme and candidate blocks reordering. Experimental results show that our reference-centered memory hierarchy outperforms the state-of-the-art [7][13] by providing reduction of up to 71% for external memory energy, 88% on-chip memory static energy, and 65% on-chip memory dynamic energy.