Stochastic Implementation of LDPC Decoders

LDPC codes are found in many recent communications standards such as 10GBASE-T, DVB-S2 and IEEE 802.16 (WiMAX). We present a review of a new class of "stochastic" iterative decoding architectures. Stochastic decoders represent probabilistic messages by the frequency of ones in a binary stream. This results in a simple mapping of the factor graph of the code into silicon. An FPGA implementation of a LDPC decoder with 8 information bits and 8 coded bits is described. On an Altera Cyclone FPGA, the throughput is 5 Mbps when clocked at 100 MHz and is expected to increase nearly linearly with the code length. Simulations of the decoder on an Altera Stratix FPGA indicate a potential throughput of 8 Mbps