Fast Multibit Decision Method for Successive-Cancellation List Polar Decoder

SC and SCL are the decoding algorithms for polar codes that have the disadvantage of high latency due to serial operations. Several algorithms, such as Fast-SSC, multibit decision, have been proposed to improve the latency with additional circuits, however, areas become larger. This paper proposes an efficient multibit decision algorithm to improve latency based on the SCL algorithm. In addition, we propose the combined nodes that combine node types of the fast-SSC algorithm to increase area efficiency and reduce the number of decoding cycles.