Energy-efficient Key-equation Solving Algorithm for BCH Decoding

Abstract

This paper presents an energy-efficient method to solve the key equation in BCH decoding. The key-equation solving block is so complicated that it consumes lots of energy because of multiple registers being dynamically updated every cycle. The block dominates the overall energy dissipation of strong BCH decoding and induces unwanted hotspots. In achieving a high-performance BCH decoder, an energy-efficient algorithm should be developed for solving the key equation. This paper proposes a novel method to detect the case of single error by exploiting the relation among syndromes. If a single-error case is detected, the modified error-locator polynomial is obtained without solving the key-equation. For a (16383, 15543, 60) decoder implemented in a 130nm CMOS process, the proposed method saves 99% and 91% of energy compared to the conventional algorithm and the previous method that detects the error-free case, respectively.