Abstract: The IEEE 802.11n SOC requests high throughput and multi-rate encoder and decoder in channel coding. In this paper, a Viterbi decoder with high throughput and low power is presented for convolutional codes in IEEE 802.11n standard, capable for 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 5/6 rates. This decoder fulfills full-parallel ACS units, MSB over-floating protection, and a registers exchange scheme for low power design is used to cut off the dynamic power in register effectively. The decoder has been implemented by SMIC 0.13-μm CMOS process, and the max throughput is 480Mb/s with the power of 25mW at 240MHz frequency.