1. A dynamic time warping device for detecting a reference pattern having a smallest matching cost value with respect to a test pattern, the device comprising: a test pattern memory unit for receiving P characterization vectors included in the test pattern in chronological order, shifting the received P characterization vectors using a first-in first out (FIFO) queue in response to an operating clock signal; a reference memory unit for storing a plurality of reference patterns corresponding to a plurality of words, and outputting P characterization vectors included in the reference pattern in chronological order; a processing unit to which (2P−1)&equals;N processing elements are serially connected, first and second ends of the serially connected processing elements are connected to an output of the test pattern memory unit and the reference pattern memory unit, respectively, so as to shift the characterization vectors included in the test pattern, and to shift the characterization vectors included in the reference pattern in the opposite direction with respect to the previous shifted characterization vectors, each processing element calculating matching cost values using a difference between the characterization vectors and matching cost values of adjacent processing elements, and selecting the smallest one from the matching cost values produced in the processing elements to output the smallest value as the smallest matching cost value of an input reference pattern; and a matching result decision unit for outputting the index of a word of a reference pattern having the smallest matching cost value out of matching cost values of the plurality of reference patterns output from the processing unit.