A Real-Time High-Throughput LDPC Decoder for IEEE 802.3an Standard

The existing LDPC decoders are mostly based on the Belief-Propagation (BP) algorithms, due to good BER performances. However, they demand large chip areas. This paper proposes a high-throughput LDPC decoder based on the bit-flipping algorithms, for the (2048, 1723) RS-LDPC code adopted in the IEEE 802.3an standard. High decoding performances and low iteration numbers are achieved by introducing a strategy of flipping low-correlation bits and an additional syndrome vote scheme. As a result, the decoding performance is very close to the most popular BP-based Min-Sum Algorithm (MSA) but with much lower computational complexity. Besides, the decoder achieves high hardware utilization with real-time processing capability.