Optimization with exit functions of GLDPC-Staircase codes for the BEC

In a previous work we introduced the Generalized LDPC-Staircase codes for the Binary Erasure Channel, based on LDPC-Staircase codes and Reed Solomon as component codes. In this paper we perform an asymptotic analysis, in terms of EXtrinsic Information Transfer functions and we derive an upper bound of the ML decoding threshold based on the area theorem. We use this analysis to study the impact of the internal LDPC-Staircase code rate on the performance, and show that the proposed Generalized LDPC-Staircase codes closely approach the channel capacity, with only a small number (E = 2, 3) of extra-repair symbols per check node.