An Improved Gradient Descent Bit-Flipping Decoder for LDPC Codes

Low-complexity and high-performance low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoders are highly demanded in various modern communication and storage systems. In this paper, a novel hard-decision decoding algorithm, called tabu-list random-penalty gradient descent bit-flipping (TRGDBF) algorithm, is proposed. Compared to the state-of-the-art harddecision algorithms, the TRGDBF algorithm has much better error-correction performance due to several algorithmic improvements. First, a random-penalty term is introduced to the inversion function to help the decoder escape from trapping sets, which are the main causes of the error-floor phenomenon. Second, a tabu-list is employed to improve the decoding efficiency. Numerical results show that the TRGDBF algorithm can achieve up to two orders of magnitude better error-correction performance than the probabilistic gradient descent bit-flipping (PGDBF) algorithm and reduce the average iteration count by about 15%. In addition, a well-optimized hardware architecture is developed to implement the TRGDBF algorithm. Algorithmic transformation and architecture optimization are well explored to reduce the hardware complexity and latency. Synthesis results show that the TRGDBF decoder can work at a higher frequency and offer a larger throughput than the PGDBF decoder.