The decoding performance of product codes and staircase codes based on iterative bounded-distance decoding (iBDD) can be improved with the aid of a moderate amount of soft information, maintaining a low decoding complexity. One promising approach is error-and-erasure (EaE) decoding, whose performance can be reliably estimated with density evolution (DE). However, the extrinsic message passing (EMP) decoder required by the DE analysis entails a much higher complexity than the simple intrinsic message passing (IMP) decoder. In this paper, we simplify the EMP decoding algorithm for the EaE channel for two commonly-used EaE decoders by deriving the EMP decoding results from the IMP decoder output and some additional logical operations based on the algebraic structure of the component codes and the EaE decoding rule. Simulation results show that the number of BDD steps is reduced to being comparable with IMP. Furthermore, we propose a heuristic modification of the EMP decoder that reduces the complexity further. In numerical simulations, the decoding performance of the modified decoder yields up to 0.2 dB improvement compared to standard EMP decoding.
High-rate product codes (PCs) and staircase codes (SCs) are ubiquitous codes in high-speed optical communication achieving near-capacity performance on the binary symmetric channel. Their success is mostly due to very efficient iterative decoding algorithms that require very little complexity. In this paper, we extend the density evolution (DE) analysis for PCs and SCs to a channel with ternary output and ternary message passing, where the third symbol marks an erasure. We investigate the performance of a standard error-and-erasure decoder and of its simplification using DE. The proposed analy…
Product codes (PCs) and staircase codes (SCCs) are conventionally decoded based on bounded distance decoding (BDD) of the component codes and iterating between row and column decoders. The performance of iterative BDD (iBDD) can be improved using soft-aided (hybrid) algorithms. Among these, iBDD with combined reliability (iBDD-CR) has been recently proposed for PCs, yielding sizeable performance gains at the expense of a minor increase in complexity compared to iBDD. In this paper, we first extend iBDD-CR to SCCs. We then propose two novel decoding algorithms for PCs and SCCs which improve upo…
Generalized product codes (GPCs) are extensions of product codes (PCs) where code symbols are protected by two component codes but not necessarily arranged in a rectangular array. We consider a deterministic construction of GPCs (as opposed to randomized code ensembles) and analyze the asymptotic performance over the binary erasure channel under iterative decoding. Our code construction encompasses several classes of GPCs previously proposed in the literature, such as irregular PCs, block-wise braided codes, and staircase codes. It is assumed that the component codes can correct a fixed number…
We show that Reed-Muller codes achieve capacity under maximum a posteriori bit decoding for transmission over the binary erasure channel for all rates $0 < R < 1$. The proof is generic and applies to other codes with sufficient amount of symmetry as well. The main idea is to combine the following observations: (i) monotone functions experience a sharp threshold behavior, (ii) the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) functions are monotone, (iii) Reed--Muller codes are 2-transitive and thus the EXIT functions associated with their codeword bits are all equal, and (iv) therefore the Area Theore…
We propose a deterministic method to design irregular Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes for binary erasure channels (BEC). Compared to the existing methods, which are based on the application of asymptomatic analysis tools such as density evolution or Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts in an optimization process, the proposed method is much simpler and faster. Through a number of examples, we demonstrate that the codes designed by the proposed method perform very closely to the best codes designed by optimization. An important property of the proposed designs is the flexibility t…
We introduce a new approach to proving that a sequence of deterministic linear codes achieves capacity on an erasure channel under maximum a posteriori decoding. Rather than relying on the precise structure of the codes our method exploits code symmetry. In particular, the technique applies to any sequence of linear codes where the blocklengths are strictly increasing, the code rates converge, and the permutation group of each code is doubly transitive. In other words, we show that symmetry alone implies near-optimal performance. An important consequence of this result is that a sequence of Re…
This paper introduces a new approach to proving that a sequence of deterministic linear codes achieves capacity on an erasure channel under maximum a posteriori decoding. Rather than relying on the precise structure of the codes, this method requires only that the codes are highly symmetric. In particular, the technique applies to any sequence of linear codes where the blocklengths are strictly increasing, the code rates converge to a number between 0 and 1, and the permutation group of each code is doubly transitive. This also provides a rare example in information theory where symmetry alone…
We show that the Extrinsic Information about the coded bits of any good (capacity achieving) code operating over a wide class of discrete memoryless channels (DMC) is zero when channel capacity is below the code rate and positive constant otherwise, that is, the Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) chart is a step function of channel quality, for any capacity achieving code. It follows that, for a common class of iterative receivers where the error correcting decoder must operate at first iteration at rate above capacity (such as in turbo equalization, turbo channel estimation, parallel and s…
Generalized product codes (GPCs) are extensions of product codes (PCs) where coded bits are protected by two component codes but not necessarily arranged in a rectangular array. It has recently been shown that there exists a large class of deterministic GPCs (including, e.g., irregular PCs, half-product codes, staircase codes, and certain braided codes) for which the asymptotic performance under iterative bounded-distance decoding over the binary erasure channel (BEC) can be rigorously characterized in terms of a density evolution analysis. In this paper, the analysis is extended to the case w…
We introduce the Scattered Extrinsic Information Transfer (S-EXIT) chart as a tool for optimizing degree profiles of short length Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes under iterative decoding. As degree profile optimization is typically done in the asymptotic length regime, there is space for further improvement when considering the finite length behavior. We propose to consider the average extrinsic information as a random variable, exploiting its specific distribution properties for guiding code design. We explain, step-by-step, how to generate an S-EXIT chart for short-length LDPC codes. W…
Several authors have proposed spatially-coupled (or convolutional-like) variants of product codes (PCs). In this paper, we focus on a parametrized family of generalized PCs that recovers some of these codes (e.g., staircase and block-wise braided codes) as special cases and study the iterative decoding performance over the binary erasure channel. Even though our code construction is deterministic (and not based on a randomized ensemble), we show that it is still possible to rigorously derive the density evolution (DE) equations that govern the asymptotic performance. The obtained DE equations …
Because of their capacity-approaching performance, graph-based codes have a wide range of applications, including communications and storage. In these codes, unequal error protection (UEP) can offer performance gains with limited rate loss. Recent empirical results in magnetic recording (MR) systems show that extra protection for the parity bits of a low-density parity-check (LDPC) code via constrained coding results in significant density gains. In particular, when UEP is applied via more reliable parity bits, higher fidelity messages of parity bits are spread to all bits by message passing a…
We analyze a class of high performance, low decoding-data-flow error-correcting codes suitable for high bit-rate optical-fiber communication systems. A spatially-coupled split-component ensemble is defined, generalizing from the most important codes of this class, staircase codes and braided block codes, and preserving a deterministic partitioning of component-code bits over code blocks. Our analysis focuses on low-complexity iterative algebraic decoding, which, for the binary erasure channel, is equivalent to a generalization of the peeling decoder. Using the differential equation method, we …
An alternative to extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) charts called mean squared error (MSE) charts that use a measure related to the MSE instead of mutual information is proposed. Using the relationship between mutual information and minimum mean squared error (MMSE), a relationship between the rate of any code and the area under a plot of MSE versus signal to noise ratio (SNR) is obtained, when the log likelihood ratios (LLR) can be assumed to be from a Gaussian channel. Using this result, a theoretical justification is provided for designing concatenated codes by matching the EXIT charts …
In this paper we study the iterative decoding threshold performance of non-binary spatially-coupled low-density parity-check (NB-SC-LDPC) code ensembles for both the binary erasure channel (BEC) and the binary-input additive white Gaussian noise channel (BIAWGNC), with particular emphasis on windowed decoding (WD). We consider both (2,4)-regular and (3,6)-regular NB-SC-LDPC code ensembles constructed using protographs and compute their thresholds using protograph versions of NB density evolution and NB extrinsic information transfer analysis. For these code ensembles, we show that WD of NB-SC-…
In this paper we consider the generalization of binary spatially coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) codes to finite fields GF$(q)$, $q\geq 2$, and develop design rules for $q$-ary SC-LDPC code ensembles based on their iterative belief propagation (BP) decoding thresholds, with particular emphasis on low-latency windowed decoding (WD). We consider transmission over both the binary erasure channel (BEC) and the binary-input additive white Gaussian noise channel (BIAWGNC) and present results for a variety of $(J,K)$-regular SC-LDPC code ensembles constructed over GF$(q)$ using protographs…
Reed-Muller Codes on CQ Channels via a New Correlation Bound for Quantum Observables
Duke University(杜克大学);Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University(杜克大学电气与计算机工程系);Duke Quantum Center, Duke University(杜克大学量子中心);Department of Mathematics, Duke University(杜克大学数学系)