Efficient utilization of present state/next state registers.

摘要

A technique is disclosed for efficiently utilizing memory in determining which next state accumulated cost to retain, such as in a communication system or a Viterbi decoder. The system includes a memory (110) having a portion of registers allocated to a first array (100) and a portion of registers allocated to a second array (120). The technique includes retrieving a present state accumulated cost from a storage register of the first array (100) and calculating a next state accumulated cost based on the present state accumulated cost. The next state accumulated cost is stored in a storage register of the second array (120). The second array (120) is designated as containing present state accumulated costs. A present state accumulated cost is retrieved from a storage register of the second array (120) and used in calculating a subsequent next state accumulated cost. The subsequent next state accumulated cost is stored in a storage register of the first array (100). <IMAGE>