Flexible High Throughput QC-LDPC Decoder With Perfect Pipeline Conflicts Resolution and Efficient Hardware Utilization

Abstract

Modern communication standards, such as 5G new radio (5G NR), require a high speed decoder for highly irregular quasi-cyclic low density parity check (QC-LDPC) codes. A widely used approach in QC-LDPC decoders is a layered decoding schedule which processes the parity check matrix in parts, thus providing faster convergence. However, pipelined layered decoding architecture suffers from data hazards that reduce the throughput. This paper presents a novel architecture, which can facilitate any QC-LDPC decoding without stall cycles caused by pipeline hazards. The decoder conveniently incorporates both the layered and the flooding schedules in cases when hazards occur. The paper also presents the genetic algorithm based optimization of the decoding schedule for better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance. The proposed architecture enables insertion of a large number of pipeline stages, thus providing high operating frequency. As a case study, the FPGA implementation for WiMAX, DVB-S2X, and 5G NR provided coded throughput of up to 1.77 Gbps, 4.32 Gbps, and 4.92 Gbps at 10 iterations, respectively. The results show a strong throughput increase of 30%–109% compared with the conventional layered decoder for 5G NR for the same SNR performance. The decoder provides highly efficient utilization of resources when compared with the state-of-the-art solutions.