Decoding apparatus, communication apparatus and decoding method

摘要

A decoding apparatus includes a branch metric calculation unit 32 for sequentially Viterbi-decoding a plurality of data sequences over respective data lengths from the start at the same time, an ACS (Add-Compare-Select) circuit 35 and a stop register 44 for sequentially comparing likelihoods of respective data sequences which were Viterbi-decoded at the same time and stopping said simultaneous decoding means from decoding respective data sequences if it is determined based upon compared results if a likelihood of a certain data sequence is lower than a predetermined threshold value. As a result, normalization information is reflected on the judgment and a desired data sequence is judged by Viterbi-decoding any one of a plurality of data sequences with simple processing without useless processing.