Methods, software, circuits and systems for coding information

摘要

Methods, software, circuits, architectures, and systems for encoding, decoding and error checking/correcting information, particularly pulse amplitude modulated information. The present invention enjoys particular advantage when used to encode x-unit sequence values of N-ary information into y-unit sequence values of M-ary information and to decode y-unit sequence values of M-ary information into x-unit sequence values of N-ary information, where N^xy (and particularly where N^xy, but N^x>M^y-M). The present invention advantageously provides a straight-forward mechanism for coding information that enables one to take advantage of coding overhead (e.g., unused states in the encoded, transmitted sequence) to accomplish other coding objectives, such as conforming to coding constraints, reducing transmission errors (or increasing the likelihood of successfully correcting such errors), dc balancing the coded information, and under certain conditions, even reducing power consumption.