Evaluation of the Concatenation of LDPC and RS Codes in Magnetic Recording Channel Using Field Programmable Gate Arrays

Concatenations of inner low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes and outer Reed-Solomon (RS) codes were evaluated in magnetic recording channel models by simulations using field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Fixed inner LDPC codes were used and the optimal code rates for the outer RS code were obtained. It is observed that the outer RS codes do not always improve sector error rates for a fixed user bit density. The effect of various parameters on the sector error rates was evaluated and discussed.