A 1 V Heterogeneous Reconfigurable Processor IC for Baseband Wireless Applications

H. Zhang, V. Prabhu, V. George, M. Wan, M. Benes, A. Abnous, and J. Rabaey

A heterogeneous reconfigurable platform enables the flexible implementation of baseband wireless functions at energy levels between 10 and 100 MOPS/mW, six times higher than traditional digital signal processors. A 5.2mm 6.7mm prototype processor, targeted for voice compression, is implemented in a 0.25- m 6-metal CMOS process, and consumes 1.8mW at an average operation rate of 40 MHz. It combines an embedded microprocessor with an array of computational units of different granularities, connected by a hierarchical reconfigurable interconnect network.