Comparative Analysis of Successive Cancellation and List Decoders Using Distinct Combinations of LLRs for Polar Codes

Under the 3
^rd
Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) New Radio (NR), polar codes have been chosen as one of the methods of channel coding. Polar codes are used for the control channel in 5G wireless communication deployment. So, the channel decoding schemes used to decode the received codeword must be properly analyzed for efficient utilization of 5G. This paper performed a comparative analysis of the distinct channel state-based capabilities of decoding of the two different contenders of polar code decoders: 1) Successive Cancelation (SC) decoder and 2) Successive Cancellation List (SCL) decoder. Here we have analyzed both the decoders in terms of the various combinations of high and low Log-Likelihood Ratios (LLRs) of the received codewords from the channel. This investigation has revealed that even the SCL decoder always explores more decodable candidates than the SC counterpart, under some specific received codewords the SC may decode better.