The VLSI Architectures of Reconfigurable and Low Complexity Channel Estimation for Millimeter-Wave Wireless Communication Systems

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This thesis presents two VLSI architectures of reconfigurable and low complexity channel estimation for Millimeter-Wave (mmWave) wireless communication systems, one of them is called HBT Channel Estimator and the other is called LCT Channel Estimator. Both of the proposed channel estimators can be reconfigured to support every 2^n×2^m antenna configuration and handle with the variation of channel within several microseconds. In order to minimize the cost of hardware implementation and enhance the flexibility, the time sharing architecture and the Contribution Projector based on CORDIC algorithm are employed in our designs. Furthermore, for various demands, the proposed two channel estimators are applied for different applications. To be specific, the HBT Channel Estimator estimates the channel with better transmission quality; the LCT Channel Estimator obtains the channel with lower power consumption and hardware complexity. Both of proposed designs are implemented by using TSMC 90nm technologies and the post-synthesized results present the hardware complexity of our designs are 41.92 and 33.34 Kilo-Gate Elements (KGEs), respectively. To the best of our knowledge, there is no related publication about the hardware implementation of mmWave channel estimation relying on hybrid beamforming technology. Hence, the proposed designs are innovative VLSI architectures for hybrid beamforming based mmWave channel estimation. Furthermore, the proposed designs can achieve reconfigurability and low hardware complexity with reasonable processing time and comparable spectral efficiency at 227.27MHz operating frequency.