Decision depths of convolutional codes
John B. Anderson, Karthika K Balachandran · IEEE Transactions on Information Theory · 1989
The decision depth function of a convolutional code L/sub D/(w) is the first trellis depth at which all unmerged incorrect subset paths exceed weight w. The authors tabulate this function for most codes in common use. L/sub D/(w) specifies the path memory length of a decoder. It follows a clear asymptotic growth rule.>