Accelerator-assisted Floating-point ASIP for Communication and Positioning in Massive MIMO Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a specialized processor with accelerators for communication and positioning in massive MIMO systems, achieving high throughput and efficient localization using advanced silicon technology.

Contribution

It presents a novel floating-point ASIP with integrated accelerators and vector processing tailored for massive MIMO communication and positioning tasks.

Findings

Achieves 2.1 Gb/s throughput in MIMO detection.

Supports approximately 390 positionings per second.

Operates at 800 MHz in 22 nm FD-SOI technology.

Abstract

This paper presents an implementation of a floating-point-capable application-specific instruction set processor (ASIP) for both communication and positioning tasks using the massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technology. The ASIP is geared with vector processing capabilities in the form of single instruction multiple data (SIMD). A dual-pronged accelerator composition assists the processor to tame the heavier mathematical workloads. A standalone systolic array accelerator accompanies the processor to aid with matrix multiplications. A parallel vector memory subsystem provides functionalities to both the processor and the systolic array. Additionally, A convolutional neural network (CNN) module accelerator, which is paired with its own separate vector memory, works hand in glove with the processor to take on the positioning task. The processor is synthesized in 22 nm fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technology running at a clock frequency of 800 MHz. The system achieves a maximum detection throughput of 2.1 Gb/s in a 128x16 massive MIMO system for the user equipment (UE) speed of 50km/h. The localization throughput settles at around 390 positionings/s.