Academic literature on the topic 'Nonbinary low-density parity check (LDPC) decoder'

<p>A new decoder architecture for nonbinary low-density parity check (LDPC) codes is presented in this paper to reduce the hardware operational complexity and power consumption. Adaptive message control (AMC) is to achieve the low decoding complexity, that dynamically trims the message length of belief information to reduce the amount of memory accesses and arithmetic operations. A new horizontal nonbinary LDPC decoder architecture is developed to implement AMC. Key components in the architecture have been designed with the consideration of variable message lengths to leverage the benefit of the proposed AMC. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed nonbinary LDPC decoder architecture can significantly reduce hardware operations and power consumption as compared with existing work with negligible performance degradation.</p>

Nonbinary low-density-parity-check (NB-LDPC) code outperforms their binary counterpart in terms of error-correcting performance and error-floor property when the code length is moderate. However, the drawback of NB-LDPC decoders is high complexity and the complexity increases considerably when increasing the Galois-field order. In this paper, an One-Minimum-Only basic-set trellis min-max (OMO-BS-TMM) algorithm and the corresponding decoder architecture are proposed for NBLDPC codes to greatly reduce the complexity of the check node unit (CNU) as well as the whole decoder. In the proposed OMO-BS-TMM algorithm, only the first minimum values are used for generating the check node messages instead of using both the first and second minimum values, and the number of messages exchanged between the check node and the variable node is reduced in comparison with the previous works. Layered decoder architectures based on the proposed algorithm were implemented for the (837, 726) NB-LDPC code over GF(32) using 90-nm CMOS technology. The implementation results showed that the OMO-BS-TMM algorithm achieves the almost similar error-correcting performance, and a reduction of the complexity by 31.8% and 20.5% for the whole decoder, compared to previous works. Moreover, the proposed decoder achieves a higher throughput at 1.4 Gbps, compared with the other state-of-the-art NBLDPC decoders.

Abstract— Nonbinary low-density-parity-check (NB-LDPC) code outperforms their binary counterpart in terms of error correcting performance and error-floor property when the code length is moderate. However, the drawback of NB-LDPC decoders is high complexity and the complexity increases considerably when increasing the Galois-field order. In this paper, a simplified basic-set trellis min-max (sBS-TMM) algorithm that is especially efficient for high-order Galois Fields, is proposed for the variable node processing to reduce the complexity of the variable node unit (VNU) as well as the whole decoder. The decoder architecture corresponding to the proposed algorithm is designed for the (837, 726) NB-LDPC code over GF(32). The implementation results using 90-nm CMOS technology show that the proposed decoder architecture reduces the gate count by 21.35% and 9.4% with almost similar error-correcting performance, compared to the up-to-date works.Tóm tắt— Các mã LDPC phi nhị phân (NB-LDPC) vượt trội so với các mã LDPC nhị phân về chất lượng sửa lỗi và thuộc tính lỗi san bằng khi chiều dài là trung bình. Tuy nhiên, nhược điểm của các bộ giải mã NB-LDPC là tính phức tạp cao và độ phức tạp tăng đáng kể khi bậc của trường Galois cao. Trong bài báo này, thuật toán Trellis Min-Max dựa trên tập cơ sở được đơn giản hóa được đề xuất cho xử lý nốt biến mà hiệu quả cho các trường Galois bậc cao để giảm độ phức tạp của khối nốt biến (VNU) cũng như cả bộ giải mã. Kiến trúc bộ giải mã tương ứng với thuật toán đề xuất được thiết kế cho mã NB-LDPC (837, 726) thông qua trường GF(32). Các kết quả thực hiện sử dụng công nghệ CMOS 90-nm chỉ ra rằng kiến trúc bộ giải mã được đề xuất giảm số lượng cổng logic 21,35% và 9,4% với chất lượng sửa lỗi gần như không thay đổi so với các nghiên cứu gần đây.

Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes have been implemented in latest digital video broadcasting, broadband wireless access (WiMax), and fourth generation of wireless standards. In this paper, we have proposed a high efficient low-density parity-check code (LDPC) decoder architecture for low power applications. This study also considers the design and analysis of check node and variable node units and Euclidean orthogonal generator in LDPC decoder architecture. The Euclidean orthogonal generator is used to reduce the error rate of the proposed LDPC architecture, which can be incorporated between check and variable node architecture. This proposed decoder design is synthesized on Xilinx 9.2i platform and simulated using Modelsim, which is targeted to 45 nm devices. Synthesis report proves that the proposed architecture greatly reduces the power consumption and hardware utilizations on comparing with different conventional architectures.

Pipeline processing in low-density parity-check codes hardware decoderLow-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes are one of the best known error correcting coding methods. This article concerns the hardware iterative decoder for a subclass of LDPC codes that are implementation oriented, known also as Architecture Aware LDPC. The decoder has been implemented in a form of synthesizable VHDL description. To achieve high clock frequency of the decoder hardware implementation - and in consequence high data-throughput, a large number of pipeline registers has been used in the processing chain. However, the registers increase the processing path delay, since the number of clock cycles required for data propagating is increased. Thus in general the idle cycles must be introduced between decoding subiterations. In this paper we study the conditions for necessity of idle cycles and provide a method for calculation the exact number of required idle cycles on the basis of parity check matrix of the code. Then we propose a parity check matrix optimization method to minimize the total number of required idle cycles and hence, maximize the decoder throughput. The proposed matrix optimization by sorting rows and columns does not change the code properties. Results, presented in the paper, show that the decoder throughput can be significantly increased with the proposed optimization method.

Low-density parity checks (LDPC) codes are considered good performance error correction codes. However, decoder complexity increases with increasing code length. In this study, we introduce short-length serially concatenated LDPC codes. The proposed technique uses pairs of compatible LDPC codes that act as outer and inner serially concatenated codes. In this code pair, the inner code takes input that is the same length as the outer LDPC encoder output. This study examined two cases of LDPC codes as compatible pairs with low numbers of iterations and compared bit error rate (BER) performance to a standalone LDPC code with an additive white Gaussian noise channel. We also considered the quadrature phase shift keying QPSK, 16-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), and 64-QAM system modulation schemes. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed system has good BER performance compared to a standalone LDPC code, the results summarized in table and performance curves.

The article presents an implementation of a low power Quasi-Cyclic Low-Density Parity-Check (QC-LDPC) decoder in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device. The proposed solution is oriented to a reduction in dynamic energy consumption. The key research concepts present an effective technology mapping of a QC-LDPC decoder to an LUT-based FPGA with many limitations. The proposed decoder architecture uses a distributed control system and a Token Ring processing scheme. This idea helps limit the clock skew problem and is oriented to clock gating, a well-established concept for power optimization. Then the clock gating of the decoder building blocks allows for a significant reduction in energy consumption without deterioration in other parameters of the decoder, particularly its error correction performance. We also provide experimental results for decoder implementations with different QC-LDPC codes, indicating important characteristics of the code parity check matrix, for which an energy-saving QC-LDPC decoder with the proposed architecture can be designed. The experiments are based on implementations in the Intel Cyclone V FPGA device. Finally, the presented architecture is compared with the other solutions from the literature.

Low Density Parity Check code is more and more taken seriously in high-speed transmission. In this article we represent a LDPC coder and decoder which based on IEEE802.16e and realize the coder and decoder with Virtex-5 FPGA. By using Matlab to make an off-line system simulation, we analyzed and compared the LDPC performance under the different length of code for LDPC coder then analyzed the influence of different iteration to the LDPC BER performance of decoder.

In this paper, we propose an operation-reduced low-density parity check (LDPC) decoder design and implementation by stopping reliable operation of check nodes of the iterative two-phase message passing (TPMP) min-sum algorithm (MSA). A check node stopping (CNS) scheme is used to tag reliability of check nodes by detecting the magnitudes of the check node belief messages with a threshold. The operation of reliable check nodes tagged by the CNS scheme can be stopped in the later iterations. The proposed LDPC decoder that employs the CNS scheme can significantly terminate the redundant operations of check nodes and efficiently reduce the power consumption of decoder. From the simulations under WiMAX QC LDPC decoding with high channel quality, the CNS scheme achieves up to 12% stopping rate of check nodes with a loss of coding gain less than 0.1 dB. The WiMAX QC LDPC decoder chip that employs the CNS scheme is implemented by a 90-nm CMOS process. Compared with the LDPC decoder that employs no CNS scheme, the overall power dissipation of the proposed LDPC decoder is decreased by 4.1% with 0.5% area overhead.

Low-density parity-check (LDPC) have been shown to have good error correcting performance approaching Shannon’s limit. Good error correcting performance enables efficient and reliable communication. However, a LDPC code decoding algorithm needs to be executed efficiently to meet cost , time, power and bandwidth requirements of target applications. Quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) codes are an important subclass of LDPC codes that are known as one of the most effective error controlling methods. Quasi cyclic codes are known to possess some degree of regularity. Many important communication standards such as DVB-S2 and 802.16e use these codes. The proposed Optimized Min-Sum decoding algorithm performs very close to the Sum-Product decoding while preserving the main features of the Min-Sum decoding, that is low complexity and independence with respect to noise variance estimation errors.Proposed decoder is well matched for VLSI implementation and will be implemented on Xilinx FPGA family

Since the rediscovery, LDPC codes attract a large amount of research efforts. In 1998, nonbinary LDPC codes were firstly investigated and the results shown that they are better than their binary counterparts in performance. Recently, there is always a requirement from the industry to design applied nonbinary LDPC codes. In this dissertation, we firstly propose a novel class of quasi-cyclic (QC) LDPC codes. This class of QC-LDPC codes embraces both linear encoding complexity and excellent compatibility in various degree distributions and nonbinary expansions. We show by simulation results that our proposed QC-LDPC codes perform as well as their comparable counterparts. However, this proposed code structure is more flexible in designing. This feature may show its power when we change the code length and rate adaptively. Further more, we present two algorithms to generate codes with short girth and better girth distribution. The two algorithms are designed based on progressive edge growth (PEG) algorithm and they are specifically designed for quasi-cyclic structure. The simulation results show the improvement they achieved. In this thesis, we also investigate the believe propagation based iterative algorithms for decoding of nonbinary LDPC codes. The algorithms include sum-product (SP) algorithm, SP algorithm using fast Fourier transform, min-sum (MS) algorithm and complexity reduced extended min-sum (EMS) algorithm. In particular, we present the proposed modified min-sum algorithm with threshold filtering which further reduces the computation complexity.

The Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes, which were invented by Gallager back in 1960s, have attracted considerable attentions recently. Compared with other error correction codes, LDPC codes are well suited for wireless, optical, and magnetic recording systems due to their near- Shannon-limit error-correcting capacity, high intrinsic parallelism and high-throughput potentials. With these remarkable characteristics, LDPC codes have been adopted in several recent communication standards such as 802.11n (Wi-Fi), 802.16e (WiMax), 802.15.3c (WPAN), DVB-S2 and CMMB. This dissertation is devoted to exploring efficient VLSI architectures for high-performance LDPC decoders and LDPC-like detectors in sparse inter-symbol interference (ISI) channels. The performance of an LDPC decoder is mainly evaluated by area efficiency, error-correcting capability, throughput and rate flexibility. With this work we investigate tradeoffs between the four performance aspects and develop several decoder architectures to improve one or several performance aspects while maintaining acceptable values for other aspects. Firstly, we present a high-throughput decoder design for the Quasi-Cyclic (QC) LDPC codes. Two new techniques are proposed for the first time, including parallel layered decoding architecture (PLDA) and critical path splitting. Parallel layered decoding architecture enables parallel processing for all layers by establishing dedicated message passing paths among them. The decoder avoids crossbar-based large interconnect network. Critical path splitting technique is based on articulate adjustment of the starting point of each layer to maximize the time intervals between adjacent layers, such that the critical path delay can be split into pipeline stages. Furthermore, min-sum and loosely coupled algorithms are employed for area efficiency. As a case study, a rate-1/2 2304-bit irregular LDPC decoder is implemented using ASIC design in 90 nm CMOS process. The decoder can achieve an input throughput of 1.1 Gbps, that is, 3 or 4 times improvement over state-of-art LDPC decoders, while maintaining a comparable chip size of 2.9 mm^2. Secondly, we present a high-throughput decoder architecture for rate-compatible (RC) LDPC codes which supports arbitrary code rates between the rate of mother code and 1. While the original PLDA is lack of rate flexibility, the problem is solved gracefully by incorporating the puncturing scheme. Simulation results show that our selected puncturing scheme only introduces the BER performance degradation of less than 0.2dB, compared with the dedicated codes for different rates specified in the IEEE 802.16e (WiMax) standard. Subsequently, PLDA is employed for high throughput decoder design. As a case study, a RC- LDPC decoder based on the rate-1/2 WiMax LDPC code is implemented in CMOS 90 nm process. The decoder can achieve an input throughput of 975 Mbps and supports any rate between 1/2 and 1. Thirdly, we develop a low-complexity VLSI architecture and implementation for LDPC decoder used in China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) systems. An area-efficient layered decoding architecture based on min-sum algorithm is incorporated in the design. A novel split-memory architecture is developed to efficiently handle the weight-2 submatrices that are rarely seen in conventional LDPC decoders. In addition, the check-node processing unit is highly optimized to minimize complexity and computing latency while facilitating a reconfigurable decoding core. Finally, we propose an LDPC-decoder-like channel detector for sparse ISI channels using belief propagation (BP). The BP-based detection computationally depends on the number of nonzero interferers only and are thus more suited for sparse ISI channels which are characterized by long delay but a small fraction of nonzero interferers. Layered decoding algorithm, which is popular in LDPC decoding, is also adopted in this paper. Simulation results show that the layered decoding doubles the convergence speed of the iterative belief propagation process. Exploring the special structure of the connections between the check nodes and the variable nodes on the factor graph, we propose an effective detector architecture for generic sparse ISI channels to facilitate the practical application of the proposed detection algorithm. The proposed architecture is also reconfigurable in order to switch flexible connections on the factor graph in the time-varying ISI channels.

A high throughput scalable decoder architecture, a tiling approach to reduce the complexity of the scalable architecture, and two low power decoding schemes have been proposed in this research. The proposed scalable design is generated from a serial architecture by scaling the combinational logic; memory partitioning and constructing a novel H matrix to make parallelization possible. The scalable architecture achieves a high throughput for higher values of the parallelization factor M. The switch logic used to route the bit nodes to the appropriate checks is an important constituent of the scalable architecture and its complexity is high with higher M. The proposed tiling approach is applied to the scalable architecture to simplify the switch logic and reduce gate complexity. The tiling approach generates patterns that are used to construct the H matrix by repeating a fixed number of those generated patterns. The advantages of the proposed approach are two-fold. First, the information stored about the H matrix is reduced by onethird. Second, the switch logic of the scalable architecture is simplified. The H matrix information is also embedded in the switch and no external memory is needed to store the H matrix. Scalable architecture and tiling approach are proposed at the architectural level of the LDPC decoder. We propose two low power decoding schemes that take advantage of the distribution of errors in the received packets. Both schemes use a hard iteration after a fixed number of soft iterations. The dynamic scheme performs X soft iterations, then a parity checker cHT that computes the number of parity checks in error. Based on cHT value, the decoder decides on performing either soft iterations or a hard iteration. The advantage of the hard iteration is so significant that the second low power scheme performs a fixed number of iterations followed by a hard iteration. To compensate the bit error rate performance, the number of soft iterations in this case is higher than that of those performed before cHT in the first scheme.

The purpose of a channel emulator is to emulate a communication channel in real-life use case scenario. These emulators are often used in the domains of research in digital and wireless communication. One such area is error correction coding, where transmitted data bits over a channel are decoded and corrected to prevent data loss. A channel emulator that does not follow the properties of the channel it is intended to replicate can lead to mistakes while analyzing the performance of an error-correcting decoder. Hence, it is crucial to validate an emulator for a particular communication channel. This work delves into the statistics of a channel emulator and analyzes its effects on a particular decoder.

Thesis (MEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2015.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Iterative error correcting codes such as LDPC codes have become prominent in modern forward error correction systems. A particular subclass of LDPC codes known as quasicyclic LDPC codes has been incorporated in numerous high speed wireless communication and video broadcasting standards. These standards feature multiple codes with varying codeword lengths and code rates and require a high throughput. Flexible hardware that is capable of decoding multiple quasi-cyclic LDPC codes is therefore desirable. This thesis investigates binary quasi-cyclic LDPC codes and designs a generic, flexible VHDL decoder. The decoder is further enhanced to automatically select the most likely decoder based on the initial a posterior probability of the parity-check equation syndromes. A software system is developed that generates hardware code for such a decoder based on a small user specification. The system is extended to provide performance simulations for this generated decoder.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Iteratiewe foutkorreksiekodes soos LDPC-kodes word wyd gebruik in moderne voorwaartse foutkorreksiestelsels. ’n Subklas van LDPC-kodes, bekend as kwasisikliese LDPC-kodes, word in verskeie hoëspoed-kommunikasie- en video-uitsaaistelselstandaarde gebruik. Hierdie standaarde inkorporeer verskeie kodes van wisselende lengtes en kodetempos, en vereis hoë deurset. Buigsame apparatuur, wat die vermoë het om ’n verskeidenheid kwasisikliese LDPC-kodes te dekodeer, is gevolglik van belang. Hierdie tesis ondersoek binêre kwasisikliese LDPC-kodes, en ontwerp ’n generiese, buigsame VHDL-dekodeerder. Die dekodeerder word verder verbeter om outomaties die mees waarskynlike dekodeerder te selekteer, gebaseer op die aanvanklike a posteriori-waarskynlikheid van die pariteitstoetsvergelykings se sindrome. ’n Programmatuurstelsel word ontwikkel wat die fermware-kode vir so ’n dekodeerder genereer, gebaseer op ’n beknopte gebruikerspesifikasie. Die stelsel word uitgebrei om werksverrigting te simuleer vir die gegenereerde dekodeerder.

Two dimensional magnetic recording (TDMR) achieves high areal densities by reducing the size of a bit comparable to the size of the magnetic grains resulting in two dimensional (2D) inter symbol interference (ISI) and very high media noise. Therefore, it is critical to handle the media noise along with the 2D ISI detection. In this paper, we tune the generalized belief propagation (GBP) algorithm to handle the media noise seen in TDMR. We also provide an intuition into the nature of hard decisions provided by the GBP algorithm. The performance of the GBP algorithm is evaluated over a Voronoi based TDMR channel model where the soft outputs from the GBP algorithm are used by a belief propagation (BP) algorithm to decode low-density parity check (LDPC) codes.

Low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes have been shown to have good error correcting performance approaching Shannon’s limit. Good error correcting performance enables efficient and reliable communication. However, a LDPC code decoding algorithm needs to be executed efficiently to meet cost, time, power and bandwidth requirements of target applications. The constructed codes should also meet error rate performance requirements of those applications. Since their rediscovery, there has been much research work on LDPC code construction and implementation. LDPC codes can be designed over a wide space with parameters such as girth, rate and length. There is no unique method of constructing LDPC codes. Existing construction methods are limited in some way in producing good error correcting performing and easily implementable codes for a given rate and length. There is a need to develop methods of constructing codes over a wide range of rates and lengths with good performance and ease of hardware implementability. LDPC code hardware design and implementation depend on the structure of target LDPC code and is also as varied as LDPC matrix designs and constructions. There are several factors to be considered including decoding algorithm computations,processing nodes interconnection network, number of processing nodes, amount of memory, number of quantization bits and decoding delay. All of these issues can be handled in several different ways. This thesis is about construction of LDPC codes and their hardware implementation. LDPC code construction and implementation issues mentioned above are too many to be addressed in one thesis. The main contribution of this thesis is the development of LDPC code construction methods for some classes of structured LDPC codes and techniques for reducing decoding time. We introduce two main methods for constructing structured codes. In the first method, column-weight two LDPC codes are derived from distance graphs. A wide range of girths, rates and lengths are obtained compared to existing methods. The performance and implementation complexity of obtained codes depends on the structure of their corresponding distance graphs. In the second method, a search algorithm based on bit-filing and progressive-edge growth algorithms is introduced for constructing quasi-cyclic LDPC codes. The algorithm can be used to form a distance or Tanner graph of a code. This method could also obtain codes over a wide range of parameters. Cycles of length four are avoided by observing the row-column constraint. Row-column connections observing this condition are searched sequentially or randomly. Although the girth conditions are not sufficient beyond six, larger girths codes were easily obtained especially at low rates. The advantage of this algorithm compared to other methods is its flexibility. It could be used to construct codes for a given rate and length with girths of at least six for any sub-matrix configuration or rearrangement. The code size is also easily varied by increasing or decreasing sub-matrix size. Codes obtained using a sequential search criteria show poor performance at low girths (6 and 8) while random searches result in good performing codes. Quasi-cyclic codes could be implemented in a variety of decoder architectures. One of the many options is the choice of processing nodes interconnect. We show how quasi-cyclic codes processing could be scheduled through a multistage network. Although these net-works have more delay than other modes of communication, they offer more flexibility at a reasonable cost. Banyan and Benes networks are suggested as the most suitable networks. Decoding delay is also one of several issues considered in decoder design and implementation. In this thesis, we overlap check and variable node computations to reduce decoding time. Three techniques are discussed, two of which are introduced in this thesis. The techniques are code matrix permutation, matrix space restriction and sub-matrix row-column scheduling. Matrix permutation rearranges the parity-check matrix such that rows and columns that do not have connections in common are separated. This techniques can be applied to any matrix. Its effectiveness largely depends on the structure of the code. We show that its success also depends on the size of row and column weights. Matrix space restriction is another technique that can be applied to any code and has fixed reduction in time or amount of overlap. Its success depends on the amount of restriction and may be traded with performance loss. The third technique already suggested in literature relies on the internal cyclic structure of sub-matrices to achieve overlapping. The technique is limited to LDPC code matrices in which the number of sub-matrices is equal to row and column weights. We show that it can be applied to other codes with a lager number of sub-matrices than code weights. However, in this case maximum overlap is not guaranteed. We calculate the lower bound on the amount of overlapping. Overlapping could be applied to any sub-matrix configuration of quasi-cyclic codes by arbitrarily choosing the starting rows for processing. Overlapping decoding time depends on inter-iteration waiting times. We show that there are upper bounds on waiting times which depend on the code weights. Waiting times could be further reduced by restricting shifts in identity sub-matrices or using smaller sub-matrices. This overlapping technique can reduce the decoding time by up to 50% compared to conventional message and computation scheduling. Techniques of matrix permutation and space restriction results in decoder architectures that are flexible in LDPC code design in terms of code weights and size. This is due to the fact that with these techniques, rows and columns are processed in sequential order to achieve overlapping. However, in the existing technique, all sub-matrices have to be processed in parallel to achieve overlapping. Parallel processing of all code sub-matrices requires the architecture to have the number of processing units at least equal to the number sub-matrices. Processing units and memory space should therefore be distributed among the sub-matrices according to the sub-matrices arrangement. This leads to high complexity or inflexibility in the decoder architecture. We propose a simple, programmable and high throughput decoder architecture based on matrix permutation and space restriction techniques.
Thesis(Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2007

Irreducible polynomials play an important role in design of Forward Error Correction (FEC) codes for data transmission with integrity and automatic correction of data, as for example, Low-Density Parity Check codes. The usage of irreducible polynomials enables construction of non-prime-order finite fields. Most of the irreducible polynomials belong to binary Galois field. The important analytical concept is optimisation of irreducible polynomials for use in FECs in nonbinary Galois (NBG) field, leading to the development of an algorithm for LDPC that can work with nonbinary Galois fields. According to studies, the Tanner graph for ‘nonbinary Low Density Parity Check’ codes might get sparser as the field’s dimensions rise, ensuring that they do much better than their binary counterparts. A detailed discussion of representation of nonbinary irreducible polynomial and the computations involved have been illustrated. The concept has been tried for NB-LDPC codes. To prove the notion, computational complexity is found from different parameters such as performance of error correction capability, complexity cost and simulation time taken. Such detail study makes the NBG fields-based FEC very suitable for high-speed data transmission with self-error correction.