Bit Level Soft Decision decoding reed-solomon codes
Alexander Vardy, Yair Be'ery · 2005
In this paper we present a Reed-Solomon decoder that makes use of bit soft decision information. A Reed- Solomon generator matrix which possesses a certain inherent structure in GF(2) is derived. Using this structure representation of the code as a union of cosets, each coset being an interleaver of several binary BCH codes, is obtained. Such partition into cosets provides a clue for efficient bit level soft decision decoding. The proposed decoding algorithms are in many cases orders of magnitude more efficient than conventional techniques.