Controlled start-up stochastic decoding of LDPC codes

This paper concerns a new and powerful Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) stochastic decoding algorithm, called Controlled Start-up Stochastic (CSS) decoding, to implement fully parallel LDPC decoders. The proposed algorithm uses a clever starting point computing method to improve the convergence as well as to reduce the latency of the decoding process, without a significant hardware complexity cost. Using this stochastic method, in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region, a short LDPC code can outperforms the fixed point state-of-the-art (2048, 1723) LDPC code. To validate the performance of the proposed algorithm, a (48, 24) LDPC code are implemented on Xilinx Virtex-6 VLX240T field programmable gate array device, with and without the CSS method. The new algorithm provides a decoding speed seven times faster and a Bit Error Rate (BER) hundred times better at E₃/N₀=4.5 dB. In addition, the results provide a BER better than the 6 bits offset min-sum algorithm (OMSA) and better than the 6 bits sum-product algorithm (SPA) for the (2048, 1723) LDPC code, below E₃/N₀=3.9 dB and E_b/N₀=4.3 dB respectively. The obtained results show that, the proposed algorithm is the first stochastic algorithm which can outperform the OMSA and SPA algorithms, with less hardware complexity.