# On List Decoding of 5G-NR Polar Codes

## TL;DR

This paper explores how to enhance 5G polar code decoding by leveraging distributed CRC bits, analyzing various schemes for early termination and error correction to optimize performance.

## Contribution

It introduces novel decoding schemes that utilize distributed CRC bits for improved early termination and error correction in 5G polar codes.

## Key findings

- Distributed CRC improves decoding efficiency.
- Tradeoffs between error correction and early termination are characterized.
- Simulation results demonstrate performance gains with proposed schemes.

## Abstract

The 5th generation wireless systems (5G) standardization process of the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) chose polar codes as a channel coding scheme for the control channel. In case of downlink control information, polar codes are concatenated with distributed distributed cyclic redundancy check (CRC). Whereas CRC bits allow to improve the performance of successive cancellation list (SCL) decoders by improving distance properties, distributed CRC bits allow for path pruning and decoding early-termination. In this paper, we show how to take advantage of the distributed CRC to improve SCL decoding, analyzing various schemes having different earlytermination and error correction properties. Simulation results compare the proposed decoding schemes, showing different tradeoffs between error-correction performance and early-termination with different decoder parameters.