A METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPRESSING SIGNALS IN A FIXED POINT FORMAT WITHOUT INTRODUCING A BIAS

摘要

A method and apparatus for compressing fixed point signals without introducing a bias. Signals are compressed according to a dithered rounding approach wherein signal values are rounded up and rounded down with approximately equal probability, canceling the bias that would otherwise result from the rounding operation. Numerical properties of the input signal are exploited in order to determine whether the signal value should be rounded up or down. Signal compression may, therefore, be introduced at multiple points within a system without accumulating a signal bias and degrading downstream performance. Further, one bit signal compression may be achieved in a particularly efficient fashion with a minimal amount of hardware.