Improved Decoding Algorithm of Serial Belief Propagation With a Stop Updating Criterion for LDPC Codes and Applications in Patterned Media Storage

In high density patterned media storage system, the “multiple islands per read head” model is taken into account for inter-track interference (ITI) in bit-patterned media (BPM). It has been proposed that low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes could improve the symbol error rate (SER) performance significantly when only considering AWGN noise alone over the storage channel. LDPC decoding algorithm could be applied in LDPC joint decoder of patterned media storage system. In this paper, we proposed a decoding algorithm of serial belief propagation (SBP) with a stop updating criterion for LDPC decoder. Simulation results show that the proposed decoding algorithm could reduce the times of generating and propagating the message in decoding with negligible error rate performance loss over AWGN channels when appropriately choosing the parameter that determines which variable node has been converged. By taking advantage of extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) charts, it is demonstrated that the proposed decoding algorithm could maintain superior SER performance and convergence rate compared with the traditional SBP decoding algorithm. To further explore the performance of the proposed decoding algorithm in “multiple islands per read head” model, we performed a large number of simulations over this channel model with different distribution percentages between the AWGN and the island position jitter noise. Simulation results show that the LDPC codes could improve the SER performance when considering jitter noise while the proposed decoding algorithm behaves excellently over the patterned media storage channel and over the AWGN channel.