On Decoding Random-Access SC-LDPC Codes

We study a new decoding strategy of multi-block SC-LDPC codes motivated by data-storage applications. To decode a sub-block out of the full code block, our proposed decoder accesses a small number of sub-blocks around the desired sub-block. We call this decoding strategy "semi-global decoding", and parametrize it by its access cost: the number of accessed sub-blocks. We provide a theoretical characterization of decoding performance, and evaluate this performance for random-access SC-LDPC ensembles.