From algorithm to implementation: a case study on blind carrier synchronization

Abstract. Increasing chip complexities demand a higher design productivity. IP cores, which implement commonly needed operations, can help to dramatically shorten development and verification times for new designs. They often allow for a efficient mapping of algorithmic tasks to a hardware architecture. In this paper we present a novel configurable building block for blind carrier synchronization that features combined frequency and phase offset estimation and an alternative modulation removal that improves communication performance compared to state-of-the-art designs. The used design flow exploits the benefits of IP cores for rapid development times while still offering the designer the full range of optimization possibilities for a specific design. It allowed us to do an almost complete design space exploration, assuring a near-optimal solution to the given problem. The implementation platform is a XILINX Virtex II Pro FPGA.