Combined channel and entropy decoding

摘要

A combined channel and entropy decoder is provided that achieves a significant bit-error rate improvement using likelihood values (61) instead of conventional bits. The likelihood values are stored in a buffer (62). A unique code-word is searched in the bit pattern or in the likelihood value. When a unique code-word is found at the identifier (63), candidate code-words are loaded into computation units where each unit computes code-word likelihood for a given code-word bit pattern. The code-word likelihood values are compared and the selected code information is fed back to the code-word controller 67 to proceed to the next-step decoding.