Patent ID: 8345764

Claim:
A motion estimation device providing a motion vector by performing a motion estimation algorithm, the motion estimation device comprising: a motion estimation unit comprising a plurality of processing elements that perform a calculating operation on pixel data of a block of a current frame and reference data in a search area of a reference frame, and that outputs a plurality of operation results on a plurality of candidate blocks in the search area, in parallel; and a comparison and selection unit that compares the operation results provided from the motion estimation unit to each other, and that generates and outputs a motion vector corresponding to the block of the current frame, wherein each of the processing elements comprises first through mth adder tree arrays (m is an integer which is greater than or equal to one), and wherein each of the first through mth adder tree arrays comprises first through nth sub-trees (n is an integer which is greater than or equal to one), and wherein the first through nth sub-trees respectively perform the calculating operation on the reference data in different candidate blocks in parallel.