Hardware Considerations for Selection Networks

The selection operation is a central part of a soft-decision error-correction algorithm, which is important for high-performance communication networks. High symbol rates and power-dissipation limitations motivate hardware implementation as a comparator network. We use industry-standard tools to investigate VLSI hardware implementation of selection networks with up to 512 inputs. We find theoretical network depth and size to be poor predictors of hardware performance. In a 65-nm process, we find that our novel half-life network is competitive with and in some cases superior to Zazon-Ivry’s pairwise and odd/even selection networks, for delay, area, and energy per selection operation.