Asynchronous VLSI Adaptive Echo Cancellation

Student: Richard P. Mackey

An asynchronous, single-chip, high-speed communication adaptive echo canceller was designed in this project. Adaptation is based on the LMS algorithm with power-of-two convergence factor. Cancellation is performed by a 128-coefficient adaptive finite impulse response filter whose coefficients are updated every cycle. The LMS power-of-two update equations were modified to allow a pipelined implementation. Pipelining the adaptation and echo estimation operations enabled hardware minimization, a high sampling rate, and no increase in convergence time. The resulting circuit updates the filter coefficients and generates the output at a sampling rate greater than 205 kHz. The chip was designed using 0.8-micron CMOS standard cells. The single-chip layout requires a die size of 9.25 mm by 7.25 mm.