In this paper, we present a new microarchitecture of low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoder compliant to the specifications of 5G new-radio (NR) wireless-communication standard. This work suggests a fully-parallel VLSI architecture for this decoder to achieve high throughput. The digital architecture of internal modules as well as system-level design of the LDPC decoder are presented here. The comprehensive bit-error-rate (BER) performance analyses of our LDPC decoder has been performed in additive-white Gaussian-noise (AWGN) channel environment for various number of decoding iterations and bit-quantization. It delivers a BER of 10-6at 1 dB of Eb/N0while decoding for 10 iterations with 7-bits quantization. In addition, FPGA implementation and post-route simulation of the proposed LDPC decoder are carried out that can decode an encoded LDPC code of 26112 code-length for 1/3 code-rate. Our decoder has achieved a throughput of 2.9 Gbps while operating at a clock frequency of 102 MHz. These implementation results are compared with the reported works where our design delivered 20× better throughput compared to the state-of-the-art LDPC decoders.
In this paper, we present a new microarchitecture of low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoder compliant to the specifications of 5G new-radio (NR) wireless-communication standard. This work suggests a fully-parallel VLSI architecture for this decoder to achieve high throughput. The digital architecture of internal modules as well as system-level design of the LDPC decoder are presented here. The comprehensive bit-error-rate (BER) performance analyses of our LDPC decoder has been performed in additive-white Gaussian-noise (AWGN) channel environment for various number of decoding iterations and bit-quantization. It delivers a BER of 10-6at 1 dB of Eb/N0while decoding for 10 iterations with 7-bits quantization. In addition, FPGA implementation and post-route simulation of the proposed LDPC decoder are carried out that can decode an encoded LDPC code of 26112 code-length for 1/3 code-rate. Our decoder has achieved a throughput of 2.9 Gbps while operating at a clock frequency of 102 MHz. These implementation results are compared with the reported works where our design delivered 20× better throughput compared to the state-of-the-art LDPC decoders.
This novel research introduces a game-changing architecture design for Quasi-Cyclic Low-Density Parity-Check (QC-LDPC) decoders in Fifth-Generation New-Radio (5G-NR) wireless communications, specifically designed to meet precise specifications and leveraging the layered Min-Sum (MS) algorithm. Our innovative approach presents a fully parallel architecture that is precisely engineered to cater to the demanding high-throughput requirements of enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) applications. To ensure smooth computation in the MS algorithm, we use the Sub-Optimal Low-Latency (SOLL) technique to optimize the critical check node process. Thus, our design has the potential to greatly benefit certain Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) scenarios. We conducted precise Bit Error Rate (BER) performance analysis on our LDPC decoder using a Hardware Description Language (HDL) Co-Simulation (MATLAB/Simulink/ModelSim) for two codeword rates (2/3 and 1/3), simulating the challenging Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel environment.
This paper presents partially-parallel low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoder architecture for binary-input additive-white Gaussian-noise (BIAWGN) channel in 5G new-radio cellular-communication technology based on layered min-sum decoding algorithm. This architecture exploits the iterative decomposition of check-node and variable-node combined-processing unit which leads to area optimization and lower hardware complexity. The proposed VLSI architecture of LDPC decoder processes quasi-cyclic LDPC encoded information which is received as log-likelihood ratios (LLRs) from soft demodulator at the receiver side. It achieves the adequate bit-error-rate (BER) of 10−6 between 2 to 4 dB of bit-energy to noise-power-spectral-density (Eb/N0) with 10 decoding iterations for various code rates like 1/3, 2/5, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, 5/6, and 8/9. The VLSI architecture of 5G new-radio LDPC decoder has been field-programmable logic-array (FPGA) prototyped and its implementation results are compared with state-of the-art designs where the proposed LDPC decoder shows lower hardware utilization up to 87%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first VLSI-architecture of LDPC decoder reported for 5G new-radio compliant to the specifications of enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB).
This brief proposes hardware-friendly QC-LDPC decoding algorithm with layered scheduling based on new logarithmic-likelihood-ratio compound (LLRC) segregation technique. Subsequently, we present hardware-efficient QC-LDPC decoder-architecture based on the proposed algorithm and additional architectural optimizations. This decoder has been designed based on the 5G-NR specifications, supporting code-lengths and code-rates in the ranges of 26112-10368 bits and 1/3-8/9, respectively. Performance analysis has shown that suggested LLRC-segregation based decoding algorithm delivers adequate FER of 10-5between 1 to 6.5 dB of SNR range. Furthermore, proposed QC-LDPC decoder is post-route simulated and implemented on the FPGA platform. It operates at a maximum clock frequency of 135 MHz and delivers a peak throughput of 11.02 Gbps. Eventually, comparison with relevant works shows that our decoder delivers 2.2× higher throughput and 8.3× better hardware-efficiency than the state-of-the-art implementations.
5G technology new radios (5G NR) require high-speed decoders that operate on highly irregular low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes.LDPC decoders have gained significant attention due to their excellent error correction performance.This study evaluates on different algorithms and scheduling techniques used for LDPC decoders.The analysis highlights that Min-Sum-based approaches can reduce the computational complexity compared to the basic sum-product algorithm, while the normalized and extended Min-Sum algorithms provide a better trade-off owing to their accurate value assumptions.Furthermore, different scheduling methods are implied for MS to improve speed and reduce latency.This study provides a comparative analysis of the algorithms and architectures that yield high throughputs without compromising performance efficiency.The LNMS algorithm with a data-level rescheduling technique resolves data dependency issues.This resolves the complexity of CN and VN and improves the throughput, making it suitable for 5G NR applications.The decoded throughput achieved with this scheduling is 7.0 Gbps.This throughput is achieved by maintaining the standard parameters and worst case parameters, such as four/eight iterations, BG1, and a code rate of 0.8/0.5.The evaluated architectures are implemented on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices.This study aids in selecting the optimal architecture and scheduling techniques for LDPC decoders by considering various performance standards to deploy wireless networks in 5G and beyond.
Modern communication standards, such as 5G new radio (5G NR), require a high speed decoder for highly irregular quasi-cyclic low density parity check (QC-LDPC) codes. A widely used approach in QC-LDPC decoders is a layered decoding schedule which processes the parity check matrix in parts, thus providing faster convergence. However, pipelined layered decoding architecture suffers from data hazards that reduce the throughput. This paper presents a novel architecture, which can facilitate any QC-LDPC decoding without stall cycles caused by pipeline hazards. The decoder conveniently incorporates both the layered and the flooding schedules in cases when hazards occur. The paper also presents the genetic algorithm based optimization of the decoding schedule for better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance. The proposed architecture enables insertion of a large number of pipeline stages, thus providing high operating frequency. As a case study, the FPGA implementation for WiMAX, DVB-S2X, and 5G NR provided coded throughput of up to 1.77 Gbps, 4.32 Gbps, and 4.92 Gbps at 10 iterations, respectively. The results show a strong throughput increase of 30%-109% compared with the conventional layered decoder for 5G NR for the same SNR performance. The decoder provides highly efficient utilization of resources when compared with the state-of-the-art solutions.
This paper presents a pipelined layered quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) decoder architecture targeting low-complexity, high-throughput, and efficient use of hardware resources compliant with the specifications of 5G new radio (NR) wireless communication standard. First, a combined min-sum (CMS) decoding algorithm, which is a combination of the offset min-sum and the original min-sum algorithm, is proposed. Then, a low-complexity and high-throughput pipelined layered QC-LDPC decoder architecture for enhanced mobile broadband specifications in 5G NR wireless standards based on CMS algorithm with pipeline layered scheduling is presented. Enhanced versions of check node-based processor architectures are proposed to improve the complexity of the LDPC decoders. An efficient minimum-finder for the check node unit architecture that reduces the hardware required for the computation of the first two minima is introduced. Moreover, a low complexity a posteriori information update unit architecture, which only requires one adder array for their operations, is presented. The proposed architecture shows significant improvements in terms of area and throughput compared to other QC-LDPC decoder architectures available in the literature.