Xiao-Xuan HuangChun-Hsien HoYu-Cheng LiNae-Chyun ChenYi-Chang LuYI-CHANG LU2019-10-312019-10-312016https://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/123456789/429937https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85011088537&doi=10.1109%2fAPCCAS.2016.7803933&partnerID=40&md5=b41ec5d8e2564a337472df0590330a73In this study, an image segmentation algorithm for processing Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) fluorescence data is proposed. In NGS applications, fluorescent spots are randomly distributed, the number of spots is large, and the sizes of these spots are small. All the characteristics make the conventional segmentation algorithm not as efficient. To speed up the segmentation process, we propose a hardware-compatible algorithm, Step Shift, and implement an ASIC design for hardware acceleration. When compared to the software version of Step Shift method, our hardware accelerator can reach 9.2 times speed-up in the experiments. © 2016 IEEE.Fluorescence; Hardware; Hardware acceleration; Hardware accelerators; Hardware implementations; Image segmentation algorithm; Next-generation sequencing; Randomly distributed; Segmentation algorithms; Segmentation process; Image segmentationconference paper10.1109/apccas.2016.78039332-s2.0-85011088537