Energy-Efficient Soft-Assisted Product Decoders

TL;DR

This paper presents an energy-efficient, high-speed soft-assisted product decoder that improves coding gain with minimal energy per bit, implemented in advanced 28-nm technology.

Contribution

It introduces a 1-Tb/s soft-assisted decoder that enhances coding gain using minimal soft information, demonstrating high-speed and energy efficiency in a compact design.

Findings

Achieves 1-Tb/s throughput with 0.63 pJ/bit energy efficiency.

Improves net coding gain by 0.2 dB using one bit of soft information.

Performs comparably to more complex hard-decision decoders.

Abstract

We implement a 1-Tb/s 0.63-pJ/bit soft-assisted product decoder in a 28-nm technology. The decoder uses one bit of soft information to improve its net coding gain by 0.2 dB, reaching 10.3-10.4 dB, which is similar to that of more complex hard-decision staircase decoders.