A 1.6-mm2 38-mW 1.5-Gb/s LDPC decoder enabled by refresh-free embedded DRAM

Abstract

Memory dominates the power consumption of high-throughput LDPC decoders. A 700 MHz refresh-free embedded DRAM (eDRAM) is designed as a low-power memory to retain data for the required access window. 321-kb eDRAM arrays are integrated in a 1.6 mm2, 65nm LDPC decoder suitable for IEEE 802.11ad. The LDPC decoder consumes 38 mW for a 1.5 Gb/s throughput at 90 MHz and 10 decoding iterations, and it achieves up to 9 Gb/s at 540 MHz.