Abstract
Many wireless communications standards are being developed and deployed around the world. In order to provide an integrated environment across different standards, there is a strong demand on flexible hardware architecture optimized for different communications routines with minimum power consumption.

In this research, we analyzed the intrinsic characteristics of wireless communications and evaluated alternatives of protocol implementations. By taking advantage of the intrinsic characteristics of wireless communications, we designed a low power DSP architecture for multi-standard mobile units. This design used a low power reconfigurable macro-operation architecture and a special data management scheme. It merged the functionality of DSP and microcontroller into a single system. We modeled the design by Verilog HDL to demonstrate the feasibility. Significant performance improvements were shown by high level language simulations.

In this talk, we will discuss the major parts of our design. This research is sponsored by Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Two US patents were filed for this research. Foreign patents and other US patents are in progress.