The Hardware/Software Co-design of Audio Decoding Used in HDTV

In this paper, Dolby AC3 standard is used as the audio decoding standard to research the hardware/software co-design method of HDTV audio decoding based on Virgo-IP-Core and a new method is present to realize the hardware/software partition by setting models for the key sub-functions of AC3 decoding program. That is, after decoding AC3 bit stream by software, the models are set up for the key sub-functions to get the extended instructions of RISC core. Through this extension, the speed of AC3 decoding is fastened, the memory space is reduced and the gates of the whole system are lessened. Next, the detail hardware of extended instruction is given. Finally, the performance of the whole system is analyzed by using the hardware/software co-evaluation method.