On Low-Complexity Decoding of Product Codes for High-Throughput Fiber-Optic Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new low-complexity iterative decoding algorithm for product codes that significantly improves performance over traditional methods while maintaining manageable complexity, ideal for high-throughput fiber-optic systems.

Contribution

A novel decoding algorithm based on generalized minimum distance decoding that narrows the performance gap with turbo product decoding with minimal complexity increase.

Findings

Close to 50% performance gap reduction compared to iBDD

Lower complexity than turbo product decoding

Effective for high-throughput fiber-optic systems

Abstract

We study low-complexity iterative decoding algorithms for product codes. We revisit two algorithms recently proposed by the authors based on bounded distance decoding (BDD) of the component codes that improve the performance of conventional iterative BDD (iBDD). We then propose a novel decoding algorithm that is based on generalized minimum distance decoding of the component codes. The proposed algorithm closes over 50% of the performance gap between iBDD and turbo product decoding (TPD) based on the Chase-Pyndiah algorithm. Moreover, the algorithm only leads to a limited increase in complexity with respect to iBDD and has significantly lower complexity than TPD. The studied algorithms are particularly interesting for high-throughput fiber-optic communications.