Reconfigurable Processor for Energy-Efficient Computational Photography

Abstract

This paper presents an on-chip implementation of a scalable reconfigurable bilateral filtering processor for computational photography applications such as HDR imaging, low-light enhancement, and glare reduction. Careful pipelining and scheduling has minimized the local storage requirement to tens of kB. The 40-nm CMOS test chip operates from 98 MHz at 0.9 V to 25 MHz at 0.5 V. The test chip processes 13 megapixels/s while consuming 17.8 mW at 98 MHz and 0.9 V, achieving significant energy reduction compared with software implementations on recent mobile processors.