Low Power Chien Search for BCH Decoder Using RT-Level Power Management

As a major contributor to the Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) decoder´s power consumption, Chien search is a critical step in the binary BCH decoding process for many portable applications. This paper proposes a new low-power design strategy by applying register transfer level (RTL) power management with significant power savings. The proposed Chien search is implemented for a (255, 187, 9) code in CMOS 0.18-μm technology, and simulations show 34% power improvement over the conventional method.