A 0.2nJ/pixel 4K 60fps Main-10 HEVC decoder with multi-format capabilities for UHD-TV applications

A first-reported 4K×2K@60fps and Main-10 HEVC video decoder integrating 14 video formats is fabricated in a 28nm CMOS process. It adopts an Adaptive Coding Unit Balance (ACUB) and Data-Sharing Wave-front Dual-core (DSWD) architectures to lower the required working frequency by 65%. A 10-bit Smart Pixel Storage (SPS) scheme is proposed to reduce the frame buffer space by 37.5%. Moreover, a weighted memory management unit (W-MMU) and multi-standard architecture reduce DRAM bandwidth and cost by 43% and 28%, respectively. This 4K Main-10 HEVC video decoder chip integrates 3.4M gate counts with area of 2.86mm². It achieves 530Mpixels/s throughput which is two times larger than the state-of-the-art HEVC design [6] and consumes 0.2nJ/pixel energy efficiency, enabling real-time 4K video playback for UHD-TV applications.