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IEEE Transactions on Communications

A Threshold-Based Binary Message Passing Decoder With Memory for Product Codes

Xinwei Zhao, Shancheng Zhao, Qingyong Deng, Zhetao Li, Xiaohu Tang

Published Mar 29, 2024• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Product codes (PCs) are typically decoded using iterative bounded distance decoding (iBDD) to ensure a low decoding complexity. To obtain further performance gain, a soft-aided decoding algorithm, termed the iBDD with scaled reliability (iBDD-SR), was proposed for PCs. In this paper, we propose an enhanced iBDD-SR by introducing threshold and memory when passing messages between the component decoders. The resulting algorithm is referred to as the threshold-based binary message passing (TB-BMP) with memory. In the proposed decoding algorithm, the soft reliability of the BDD output at the current half-iteration is a weighted sum of the BDD output, the channel reliability, and the content of the memory unit, where the content of the memory unit at the current half-iteration is related to the selected threshold and the BDD output at last half-iteration. Due to the existence of memory, the Bayesian network is used to model the decoding process of the TB-BMP. Based on the Bayesian network, we derive the density evolution (DE) equations for the TB-BMP under the constraint of extrinsic message passing (EMP). The analytical results of the DE analysis can be used to guide the selection of the parameters of the TB-BMP decoder. Extensive simulation results show that the TB-BMP decoder outperforms the iBDD-SR over the binary-input additive white Gaussian noise (Bi-AWGN) channels. In particular, for a PC based on a two-error-correcting extended Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) code of length 256, the TB-BMP decoder performs about 0.28 dB better than the iBDD-SR at a bit error rate (BER) of 10-7.

DOI
10.1109/tcomm.2024.3383104

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IEEE Transactions on Communications•Jul 5, 2023•1 citation
Product codes (PCs) are typically decoded using iterative bounded distance decoding (iBDD) to ensure a low decoding complexity. To obtain further performance gain, a soft-aided decoding algorithm, termed the iBDD with scaled reliability (iBDD-SR), was proposed for PCs. In this paper, we propose an enhanced iBDD-SR by introducing threshold and memory when passing messages between the component decoders. The resulting algorithm is referred to as the threshold-based binary message passing (TB-BMP) with memory. In the proposed decoding algorithm, the soft reliability of the BDD output at the current half-iteration is a weighted sum of the BDD output, the channel reliability, and the content of the memory unit, where the content of the memory unit at the current half-iteration is related to the selected threshold and the BDD output at last half-iteration. Due to the existence of memory, the Bayesian network is used to model the decoding process of the TB-BMP. Based on the Bayesian network, we derive the density evolution (DE) equations for the TB-BMP under the constraint of extrinsic message passing (EMP). The analytical results of the DE analysis can be used to guide the selection of the parameters of the TB-BMP decoder. Extensive simulation results show that the TB-BMP decoder outperforms the iBDD-SR over the binary-input additive white Gaussian noise (Bi-AWGN) channels. In particular, for a PC based on a two-error-correcting extended Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) code of length 256, the TB-BMP decoder performs about 0.28 dB better than the iBDD-SR at a bit error rate (BER) of 10-7.
We propose a novel binary message passing decoding algorithm for product-like codes based on bounded distance decoding (BDD) of the component codes. The algorithm, dubbed iterative BDD with scaled reliability (iBDD-SR), exploits the channel reliabilities and is therefore soft in nature. However, the messages exchanged by the component decoders are binary (hard) messages, which significantly reduces the decoder data flow. The exchanged binary messages are obtained by combining the channel reliability with the BDD decoder output reliabilities, properly conveyed by a scaling factor applied to the BDD decisions. We perform a density evolution analysis for generalized low-density parity-check (GLDPC) code ensembles and spatially coupled GLDPC code ensembles, from which the scaling factors of the iBDD-SR for product and staircase codes, respectively, can be obtained. For the white additive Gaussian noise channel, we show performance gains up to 0.29 dB and 0.31 dB for product and staircase codes compared to conventional iterative BDD (iBDD) with the same decoder data flow. Furthermore, we show that iBDD-SR approaches the performance of ideal iBDD that prevents miscorrections.
We propose a novel low-complexity soft-aided hard-decision decoding scheme for product-like codes, termed iterative bounded-distance decoding (iBDD) with graded scaled reliability and bit-flipping (GSRF). This scheme operates on four-level quantized soft information. It incorporates a graded scaled reliability rule to assign decoding confidence to the bounded-distance decoding result, and employs a bit-flipping rule based on bit-level and component-code-level reliability. A selective re-decoding rule is designed to further facilitate the error performance while keeping the number of BDD attempts in reasonably low levels. The decoding parameter design of iBDD-GSRF is investigated for product codes and staircase codes, respectively. Simulation results on both codes verify that iBDD-GSRF achieves a gain of more than 0.4 dB over the conventional iBDD, comparable to several existing unquantized soft-aided decoders.
In the information theory , the non- binary low density parity check  (NB-LDPC) code is a  linear error correcting code , a method of transmitting message over a  noisy transmission channel. LDPCcodes are  capacity-approaching codes , which  means  that  practical constructions exist  that allow the noise threshold to be set very close to the theoretical maximum for a symmetric memory less channel.Using iterative  belief propagation techniques, NB-LDPC codes can be decoded in time linear to their block length. Non-binary low-density parity-check codes can achieve higher performance than their binary counterparts. Recently, two algorithms were developed for decoding NB-LDPC codes: iterative hard reliability-based majority-logic decoding (IHRB-MLGD) and iterative soft reliability-based majority-logic decoding (ISRB-MLGD has better performance-complexity tradeoffs than previous algorithms. This paper first proposes message-passing in such a way that we can reduce the memory consumption to a greater extent at the same time there should not be performance loss. By using enhanced iterative reliability-based majority-logic decoding algorithms we can achieve effective complexity-performance and noise free design. Compared to previous designs, our proposed decoders have at least tens of times lower complexity with moderate coding gain loss.
We propose a novel soft-aided hard-decision decoding scheme for product codes based on two-bit quantized reliability markers. In particular, one bit is used for a two-level tolerance miscorrection check to validate the bounded distance decoding (BDD) result, while the other identifies bits to be randomly flipped upon BDD failure and miscorrection. List decoding is incorporated to further facilitate the error performance. Density evolution is performed for the design of the quantization thresholds. Compared to iterative BDD, the proposed scheme requires only moderate increases in memory and computational overhead. Simulation results verify that our scheme outperforms several unquantized soft-aided decoders, while maintaining small memory costs and low BDD attempts.
Density evolution is often used to determine the performance of an ensemble of low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes under iterative message-passing algorithms. Conventional density evolution techniques over memoryless channels are based on the independence assumption amongst all the processed messages in variable and check nodes. This assumption is valid for many algorithms such as standard belief propagation (BP) and min-sum (MS) algorithms. However, there are other important iterative algorithms such as successive relaxation (SR) versions of BP and MS, and differential decoding with binary message passing (DD-BMP) algorithm of Mobini et. al., for which this assumption is not valid. The dependence created among messages for these algorithms is due to the introduction of memory in the iterative algorithm. In this work, we propose a model for iterative decoding algorithms with memory which covers SR and DD-BMP algorithms as special cases. Based on this model, we derive a Bayesian network for iterative algorithms with memory over memoryless channels and use this representation to analyze the algorithms using density evolution. The density evolution technique is developed based on truncating the memory of the decoding process and approximating it with a finite order Markov process, and can be implemented efficiently. As an example, we apply our technique to analyze the performance of DD-BMP on regular LDPC code ensembles, and make a number of interesting observations with regard to the performance/complexity trade off of DD-BMP in comparison with BP and MS algorithms.
The performance of generalized low-density parity-check (GLDPC) codes under binary and ternary message passing decoding (BMP/TMP) is analyzed from a density evolution (DE) perspective. At the check nodes, two types of local decoders are considered, namely optimum a-posteriori probability (APP) soft-input soft-output decoding, and bounded distance decoding (BDD). The purpose is to shed light on the performance loss incurred by BMP and TMP decoding of GLDPC codes with respect to unquantized belief propagation (BP) decoding. A DE analysis for irregular code ensembles is developed for all the algorithms, which allows obtaining the scaling coefficients needed for the variable node operation of BMP and TMP decoders. The stability analysis for the case of bounded distance decoding at the check nodes is derived. The asymptotic DE analysis is confirmed by the finite-length simulation results. For the codes analyzed in this paper, which rely on extended Hamming component codes, the study shows that under BMP decoding, BDD at the check nodes yields almost the same performance as optimum APP check node processing, while under TMP decoding the loss incurred by the sub-optimum BDD at check nodes is within 0.7 dB, when compared with APP decoding at the check nodes.