A Novel Iterative Soft-Decision Decoding Algorithm for RS-SPC Product Codes

Abstract: This paper presents a generalized construction of RS-SPC product codes. A low-complexity joint-decoding scheme is proposed for these codes, in which a BP-based iterative decoding is performed based on the binary expansion of the whole parity-check matrix. Various powerful RS codes can be used as the component codes for RS-SPC product codes, which gives a good performance for local decoding (decode a single component codeword). The proposed BP-based iterative decoding is a global decoding, and it achieves an error-correcting capability comparable to codes of large blocklengths. This two-phase decoding scheme preserves the low decoding latency and complexity of the local decoding while achieves high reliability through the global decoding. The complexity of the proposed iterative decoding is discussed, and the simulation results show the proposed scheme offers a good trade-off between the complexity and the error performance.