A 5G-code based iterative Non-Binary LDPC decoder

This paper proposes an iterative Non-Binary LDPC (NB-LDPC) decoder for non-binary codes constructed using the 5G base matrices. Motivated by the binary to non-binary replacement method, we construct NB-LDPC matrices devised directly from the 5G base matrices. Subsequently, we develop an iterative decoding scheme able to facilitate parallelism due to its low complexity and to offer high performance due to its fast convergence. BER plots comparing Min-sum binary decoder (over 5G base matrices) to our proposed NB decoder reveal a performance gain of 0.5 dB in certain cases. Furthermore, hardware synthesis results obtained for a 45-nm ASIC technology are provided in order to quantify the throughput rate and area requirements of the proposed architecture. It is shown that the proposed decoding architecture, because of its independence on the lifting size factor, can offer higher throughput rate than the binary ones for small codeword lengths and code rates. In addition, as Galois Field (GF) order increases, the throughput rate increases too. Finally, the throughput-to-area show that the proposed NB architecture is generally suitable for small lifting size factors.