Articles

In this paper, we presented VLSI algorithms and architectures for JPEG2000. JPEG2000 is the new standard for image compression. We briefly described the core algorithms for JPEG2000 standard and its several features desirable in many interactive multimedia applications. The core compression algorithm has three major components - discrete wavelet transform (DWT), fractional bit plane coding (BPC), and context adaptive binary arithmetic coding. DWT and BPC are very computationally, as well as memory expensive operations. As a result, special purpose VLSI implementations of these algorithms are desirable for many devices to compress large size images in real time. Traditionally, the DWT is realized by convolution based finite impulse response (FIR) filtering techniques. However, Lifting based implementation of DWT is found to be computationally efficient and suitable for VLSI implementations. The basic principle behind the lifting based scheme is to decompose the finite impulse response filters in wavelet transform into a finite sequence of simple filtering steps. Lifting based DWT implementation have been recommended in JPEG2000 standard. Consequently, this has become an area of active research and several architectures have been proposed in recent years. In this paper, we reviewed some of the key lifting architectures suitable for VLSI implementation. The embedded block coding with optimized truncation (EBCOT) algorithm has been adopted for computation of BPC in JPEG2000. This algorithm is complex and inefficient to implement in a general purpose machine. We have described a special purpose architecture suitable for VLSI implementation of EBCOT algorithm. We also reviewed some elegant architectures in the literature which exploit the underlying data and computational parallelism inherent in the EBCOT algorithms. We also presented a top-level systems architecture for VLSI implementation of the JPEG2000 standard.