An efficient frame memory interface of MPEG-2 video encoder ASIC chip

This paper presents an efficient frame memory interface of MPEG-2 video encoder which is accomplished in not only reducing interface buffer size through efficient memory map organization and access timing schedules but also avoiding unnecessary small size buffers and simplifying their control circuits. In this design, 0.5 /spl mu/m CMOS TLM (triple layer metal) standard cells are used as design libraries, and VHDL simulator and logic synthesis tools are used for hardware design and verification, and the hardware emulator that is a C-language model of the proposed architecture is exploited for various test vector generation and functional verification. The improved frame memory interface module takes about 58% less hardware area than the previous design (Kim et al. 1997), and results in reducing the total hardware area of the video encoder ASIC chip up to 24.3%. We also reduced the random memory accesses to save the power consumption caused by the transition of the system-level I/O buses.