Fixed- versus floating-point implementation of MIMO-OFDM detector

In this paper, we investigate the opportunities offered by floatingpoint arithmetics in enabling an assembly and intrinsics free highlevel language based development. We compare the characteristics of floating- and fixed-point arithmetics by simulating a MIMOOFDM soft output detector in a 3G LTE link level simulator. The hardware complexity and energy dissipation are analyzed by implementing three programmable processors supporting 32- and 12-bit floating-point and 16-bit fixed-point arithmetics. The processors are based on the transport triggered architecture (TTA) that has a very low programmability overhead. The analysis shows that at the same goodput rate a floating-point implementation can achieve a lower gate count and better power efficiency than a fixed-point design.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: ICASSP
• Authors: Janne Janhunen, Perttu Salmela, Olli Silvén, Markku J. Juntti
• Keywords: 16-bit fixed-point Arithmetics, ICASSP 2011, LTE Link Level, Signal Processing, fixed-point Arithmetics