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International Symposium on Turbo Codes and Iterative Information Processing

Complexity evaluation of non-binary Galois field LDPC code decoders

Timo Lehnigk-Emden, Norbert Wehn

Published Sep 1, 2010• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Forward error correction is an essential part of digital communication systems. Non-binary low-density parity-check (NB-LDPC) codes have an excellent communications performance for short block lengths. The higher the field size is, the better the communications performance is. Non-binary LDPC codes can outperform all other state-of-the-art code classes. However, the algorithmic decoding complexity grows with the field size. For an intended, future use of these codes in real systems, an efficient hardware implementation is mandatory. Hardware architectures for binary LDPC codes are well investigated, but efficient implementation of non-binary LDPC decoders is still an open field. To the best of our knowledge, this paper studies for the first time the hardware implementation costs for non-binary LDPC decoders with Galois field sizes of 4, 16 and 256 on FPGA and a 65nm ASIC technology.

DOI
10.1109/istc.2010.5613874

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Forward error correction is an essential part of digital communication systems. Non-binary low-density parity-check (NB-LDPC) codes have an excellent communications performance for short block lengths. The higher the field size is, the better the communications performance is. Non-binary LDPC codes can outperform all other state-of-the-art code classes. However, the algorithmic decoding complexity grows with the field size. For an intended, future use of these codes in real systems, an efficient hardware implementation is mandatory. Hardware architectures for binary LDPC codes are well investigated, but efficient implementation of non-binary LDPC decoders is still an open field. To the best of our knowledge, this paper studies for the first time the hardware implementation costs for non-binary LDPC decoders with Galois field sizes of 4, 16 and 256 on FPGA and a 65nm ASIC technology.
Binary Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) codes are a type of error correction code known to exhibit excellent error-correcting capabilities, and have increasingly been applied as the forward error correction solution in a multitude of systems and standards, such as wireless communications, wireline communications, and data storage systems. In the pursuit of codes with even higher coding gain, non-binary LDPC (NB-LDPC) codes defined over a Galois field of order q have risen as a strong replacement candidate. For codes defined with similar rate and length, NB-LDPC codes exhibit a significant coding gain improvement relative to that of their binary counterparts.Unfortunately, NB-LDPC codes are currently limited from practical application by the immense complexity of their decoding algorithms, because the improved error-rate performance of higher field orders comes at the cost of increasing decoding algorithm complexity. Currently available ASIC implementation solutions for NB-LDPC code decoders are simultaneously low in throughput and power-hungry, leading to a low energy efficiency.We propose several techniques at the algorithm level as well as hardware architecture level in an attempt to bring NB-LDPC codes closer to practical deployment. On the algorithm side, we propose several algorithmic modifications and analyze the corresponding hardware cost alleviation as well as impact on coding gain. We also study the quantization scheme for NB-LDPC decoders, again in the context of both the hardware and coding gain impacts, and we propose a technique that enables a good tradeoff in this space. On the hardware side, we develop a FPGA-based NB-LDPC decoder platform for architecture prototyping as well as hardware acceleration of code evaluation via error rate simulations. We also discuss the architectural techniques and innovations corresponding to our proposed algorithm for optimization of the implementation. Finally, a proof-of-concept ASIC chip is realized that integrates many of the proposed techniques. We are able to achieve a 3.7x improvement in the information throughput and 23.8x improvement in the energy efficiency over prior state-of-the-art, without sacrificing the strong error correcting capabilities of the NB-LDPC code.
Non-binary low-density parity-check (NB-LDPC) codes show higher error-correcting performance than binary low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes when the codeword length is moderate and/or the channel has bursts of errors. The need for high-speed decoders for future digital communications led to the investigation of optimized NB-LDPC decoding algorithms and efficient implementations that target high throughput and low energy consumption levels. We carried out a comprehensive survey of existing NB-LDPC decoding hardware that targets the optimization of these parameters. Even though existing NB-LDPC decoders are optimized with respect to computational complexity and memory requirements, they still lag behind their binary counterparts in terms of throughput, power and area optimization. This study contributes to an overall understanding of the state-of-the-art on application-specific integrated-circuit (ASIC), field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and graphics processing units (GPU) based systems, and highlights the current challenges that still have to be overcome on the path to more efficient NB-LDPC decoder architectures.
The non-binary Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes over Galois Fields GF(q = 2 p ) have evolved from the binary LDPC codes that are today an industry standard for channel coding. The performance of short block length codes is significantly higher for non-binary LDPC, at the cost of increased decoding complexity. The efficient decoder hardware implementation is still a challenging task. Most of the recently proposed hardware realizations are ASIC-oriented as they employ multiplierless computation units. This article concerns a different decoder design approach that is specifically intended for an FPGA implementation. The reformulated mixed-domain FFT-BP decoding algorithm is applied that does not exclude the multiplication units. This allows mapping a part of the algorithm to the multiplier cores embedded in an FPGA. In this article we concentrate on the important issue of the proper selection of the numeric precision employed. We present the partially parallel extension of the mixed-domain decoder that operates for the structured codes. Then we carefully analyze the finite precision effects on the decoding performance. By simulation and synthesis results we show that it is advantageous to segment the decoder dataflow into 3 parts with different precision. The provided results also facilitate the precision selection for maximum performance or for some performance- complexity tradeoff. Index Terms—Error correcting codes, LDPC codes, Non- binary codes, Iterative decoder, Hardware decoder
The concept of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) coding over Galois Fields GF (q = 2p) is a generalization of the industry standard binary LDPC coding. The performance for short block length codes is significantly higher for non-binary codes (over higher order GF fields), but on the other hand, the decoding complexity is increased. Therefore the hardware implementation of a decoder is still a challenging task. Most of the few implementations known from the literature use multiplierless computing units. In this article we present a different approach that does not exclude multiplier blocks from the decoder module. This approach is specifically intended for FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) implementation. We propose the decoding algorithm formulation that uses multiplications in the computation step of the Check Nodes and summations performed in the Bit Nodes. The main reason is to enable mapping a part of the algorithm to the multiplier cores available in the FPGA devices. In the article we present the decoder structure that has been developed and the construction of its building blocks. We also provide synthesis results for the Xilinx FPGAs and simulation results for a simple BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying) modulation model over AWGN (Additive White Gaussian Noise) channel.
Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) codes over nonbinary Galois Fields GF(q) are a generalization of the industrial standard binary LDPC codes for forward error correction in communication and information systems.The nonbinary codes can achieve significantly better performance for short and moderate block lengths.A lot of works concerning "good" LDPC codes parity check matrix construction has been published so far.However, it is well known that efficient partially parallel hardware decoder architectures are allowed only for codes with blockwise partitioned structure of the parity check matrix, called structured codes.In this paper we present a versatile algorithm for construction of codes that are both nonbinary and structured.The proposed algorithm aims at optimizing the code graph (Tanner graph) by reducing the existence of small cycles with low external connectivity, while at the same time selecting appropriate nonzero coefficients from the Galois Field under interest.The algorithm can be used for code construction of any field order, block length and code rate.