| Abstract |
Disclosed are method and apparatus for decoding variable length Qodewords such as a digital image signal at a high speed using a Huffman code tree. in accordance with 5 the present invention, since a variable length coded codeword is stored in a look-up memory in a node order according to levels of a canonical lluffman code tree structure, and the node order of the coded codewords is detected by a predetermined calculating operation so that the node order is used as an address of the decoding codeword when decoding the variable length coded codeword. 'Therefore, the variable length code 10 decoding is achieved in a manner which simply stores variables in a memory and a latch without changing a hardware when a Huffman code tree is changed by an operation of a central system. Also, since the present invention may by processing a coded codeword with a clock using a parallel calculation regardless of a decoded codeword length, it can decode a coded codeword at higher speed than a conventional variable length decoding 15 apparatus and method thereof which perform to decode in the unit of bit. |